


Iron Maiden

by shy_fox



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: A little bit of violent face mashing, Cute nerdy father-daughter team up, Daddy/Daughter bonding, Gen, Hanging out with superheroes, Pepper Potts yelling at Tony Stark, Post-Iron Man 3, Pre-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Tony Stark getting in trouble
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-20
Updated: 2017-05-26
Packaged: 2018-03-13 21:06:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 51,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3396332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shy_fox/pseuds/shy_fox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony Stark, formerly Iron Man, has quit. He thought he was done with the superhero life, choosing instead to return to his pre-superhero ways relaxing with his fiancée Pepper Potts.</p>
<p>When a news report shows footage of a new Iron Man suit, Tony is the first person they call. He decides to launch his own investigation into the maker of the new suit, but what he finds is not what he expects. </p>
<p>Warning: contains some naughty swears.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Some Surprising News

Tony Stark, billionaire genius and former superhero, yawned lazily and stretched to the fullest extent. “Good afternoon, sir.” the voice made him smile: Jarvis had recently developed a little bug that made him sound even more sarcastic than usual and Tony couldn’t put his finger on why it was so funny to hear the automated butler be super sassy. “Good afternoon to you too.” His fiancee Pepper was out of the country on business, and would be gone for at least a couple of weeks. Tony had taken the opportunity to take some time off, and was luxuriating in the best sleep-ins of his life.

 

“Ms Potts called, sir. She sounded absolutely thrilled that you were still in bed at 1pm.” Tony slipped his legs over the side of his bed and stood up with another stretch, cracking joints as they complained, and shuffled his way lazily to the bathroom without answering Jarvis. The AI took that to mean that he hadn’t heard him, and repeated. “Sir, Ms Potts called.” Tony waved his hand. “Yeah yeah I heard you… turn the shower on, would you? And turn up the news.” Jarvis murmured something that sounded extremely sassy and the shower turned on as the glass became a screen and sound oozed through hidden speakers.

 

Tony showered, barely paying attention beyond listening to how his company was doing (very well) and feeling gooey about the human interest story about dogs. “In superhero news today…” his ears perked up; it was always fun to see what the Avengers were doing now he’d quit. “... everyone was shocked when billionaire Tony Stark hung up his Iron Man helmet, leaving the people of the city to wonder who would be able to protect them. However new footage just obtained by this station has been released of what we believe to be someone in an Iron Man suit. We warn you that the following images are graphic.”

 

The images started out dark and then lit up suddenly, and Tony realised that it was filming a night scene under a streetlight. Several figures were struggling against something contained in the middle, and suddenly they were thrown back. The camera operator shakily zoomed in on the figure in the center and Tony yelled “JARVIS!!” and quickly studied the footage as what appeared to be an Iron Man suit took out an attacker and was jumped on by someone else. They struggled for a second and then the thug was thrown off and into a wall with a sickening crunch. The footage ended and the picture returned to a small still of the outline of the Iron Man suit next to the presenter. “Does this mean Mr Stark has returned to his crime fighting ways? We’ll keep you updated as the story develops.”

 

In a blind fog Tony stumbled out of the bathroom leaving the shower running, ignoring Jarvis pleading “sir? pants?” and hurrying to his workshop. “Upload the footage and clean it up then extract it to 3D. I need to see.” He leaned on the edge of his workbench while Jarvis worked. “Sir, please… pants… you remember what happened last time you were in here without clothes on… things caught on fire.” Tony waved his hand dismissively, but he did remember and quickly went to a drawer where Pepper had very thoughtfully been storing clothes.

 

By the time he’d managed to pull on some pants and a shirt, Jarvis was done rendering the video. “Very interesting, sir.” It popped up in front of Tony and he let it play from start to finish. He walked around the scene, using his hands to make the images bigger. “Does this seem…. odd to you, Jarvis?” He made a loop with his finger and the now-enlarged video played in a loop as he stood back, stroked his beard, and considered it. “Analyse the suit. Give me a mock-up.” A number of shapes appeared, and soon Tony had a digital model of the suit to look at. He pulled it away from the video and stood it on its own, and then walked around it. “Does this… look a little small to you, Jarvis?” If AI could nod, Jarvis would have done so. “Indeed, sir. The suit wearer is noticeably smaller than you are. Perhaps a teenager?” Tony waved his hand dismissively. “No way. No teenager could build something like this.”

 

Suddenly the phone rang. “Sir, it’s the LA Police Department calling for you.” Tony shook his head. “I’m busy.” Jarvis cleared his throat. “They say it’s very important, and it’s regarding the suit.” Tony looked up at the ceiling, and then hurried to the nearest phone. “Hello, Tony Stark speaking.” The voice on the other seemed panicky. _“Mr Stark, finally. Your assistants are very good at their job. I practically had to file a warrant to get access to this number.”_ Tony smiled; Pepper had informed the entire company that he wasn’t to be disturbed and they’d taken it very seriously. “Yes I know, that’s why I pay them. How can I help?” The voice on the other end cleared their throat. _“My name is Chief Detective Thomas Ramm, calling on behalf of the LAPD Police Commissioner. Sir… are you aware that there’s been sightings of an Iron Man suit in downtown LA?”_ Tony rubbed his beard. “I saw the news report today, yeah.” The detective cleared his throat. _“Ok… the police commissioner wants to know… is it you?”_

 

Tony stopped rubbing his beard. “Is it me? Seriously? I quit being Iron Man months ago. All my suits were destroyed and I haven’t built any more. I don’t even have the arc reactor anymore.” The detective coughed awkwardly. _“Well, sir… she still wants to know… did you get bored and build another suit on the sly?”_ Tony slammed his fist into the nearest surface. “Of course not! I just told you I didn’t!” The detective sighed. _“Ok, sir. Sorry. She’s just… really sure it’s you. I mean, who else has the resources?”_

 

Tony grumbled a bit before resting his eyes on the 3D mockup of the strange suit. “Detective… I can help you guys track whoever this is down.” The detective made an indecisive noise, but apparently received some sort of negative command. _“Sorry, Mr Stark, the police department can’t afford it. We have the best people on it. I love your work though.”_ The detective politely said goodbye and hung up, and Tony was left standing there holding the phone staring at the 3D suit image. “The best people, huh…”

 

*

 

It had taken a lot of resources, more than he’d thought. Tony Stark sat in the nearly-empty cafe with a cup of cheap coffee disguised in cheap clothes, a cheap baseball cap low over his eyes as he studied the darkening street outside. A lonely fan buzzed in a corner, drowning out the low hum of the old-style tv above the counter. The only server, a young teen with the first wisps of a moustache, leaned disinterestedly beside the register staring at his phone. A moth fluttered futilely against a light bulb and Tony found his eyes drawn to it instead of the almost-dark street outside.

 

Suddenly a heavily-muscled man walked through the front door, the grimy bell on the top jingling with a tinny sound. The teenaged server glanced up and then hastily stuffed his phone in his pocket, standing back so the newcomer could squeeze through the lift-up counter and disappear into the back room. Sensing something was about to go down, Tony left the cheap coffee on the table with a folded bill half-tucked under it and strolled out the front door and into the night. He didn’t go far; his leisurely stroll took him slowly down a dark alley and towards the back of the coffee shop. There he found a well-used driveway that cut between the buildings. Tony then spotted a great little place to hide and disappeared into the shadows to wait.

 

His resources were not spent in vain. After a few minutes the heavily muscled man appeared from a back door and stood under a lamp waiting. A group of young men materialised from behind him, each clutching a parcel. “You do your damn jobs, you get paid. And put that shit away, you got no idea who’s watching.” Just as suddenly, there was a glowing light from the other side of the group, and a voice distorted by a modifier growled “No. You don’t.”

 

Tony watched as the person in the mechanised suit gave off a blast of energy and took out half of the dealers, following that up by rushing the rest and doling out justice. The heavily muscled leader saw where the fight was going and grabbed a shotgun he’d had stashed. “Don’t fucking move, Iron Man!” The suit stiffened, and turned slowly to look at the man. “Do I fucking look like fucking Iron Man to you?” In the light from the bulb above them everyone could see that the suit was straight black. The suit itself was practically tiny, and Tony found himself wondering if maybe Jarvis had actually been right and the person inside was a teenager.

 

The muscly guy shrugged. “Iron Man, not Iron Man, you’re still just some jerk in a metal suit who killed my dealers.” The black suit bristled. “You asshole. You bring drugs into neighborhoods using kids, kill people, bribe cops… and you have the nerve to act like this?” They were cut off as the muscular man took aim and fired the shotgun.

 

The black suit crumpled and the muscley man looked around at the bodies littering the alley floor and shrugged, disappearing back into the door for a moment before reappearing carrying a pair of heavy-looking duffle bags. He stepped on the dealers lying on the ground like they weren’t even there, pausing only to reclaim his product, before heading for his car and roaring off into the night. Tony gave him a moment before he quickly went over to the black suit lying on the ground.

 

He put a hand on the chestplate; it had taken most of the impact. There was a massive indentation from the buckshot but very few actual holes where pellets had made it through, and Tony silently congratulated the prone figure for such a sturdy build. Unfortunately there were enough holes in the chestplate for the wearer to have been pretty seriously injured, and Tony felt around for his cellphone to call an ambulance. The figure apparently saw what he was doing and started struggling, and Tony tried to hold them down. “Stay down, kid. You’ll just hurt yourself worse.” He was surprised by a stream of curses hurled his way and the black suit managed to push him off and stagger up. Tony stared for a moment. “Seriously, you should wait around and get some medical attention!” They put a hand to their chest and pretended not to hear him, and instead turned and stumbled off into the darkness of the alley. “Wait!” The cops chose that perfect moment to start to turn up, and Tony found himself surrounded by police demanding an explanation.

 

*

 

After several gruelling hours spent convincing the police that actually, it wasn't him who assaulted all the those drug dealers practically to death, Tony Stark wandered out into the morning light and moodily put his hands in his pockets. He was barely any closer to finding this new Iron Man. The billionaire wasn't sure why he needed to meet the new guy so badly but something, possibly a misguided idea that they could bond, was driving him to track them down. His phone jingled annoyingly and he glanced at it: Pepper. "Hello honey, missing me already?" Pepper sounded pissed. _"Why did the police call me at five this morning to tell me you'd been taken into custody on suspicion of assaulting and seriously injuring a bunch of teenagers??"_ Tony winced. "That wasn't me Pepper that was... someone else. I just happened to see what happened to those poor young guys."

  
He got into the waiting car driven by one of his personal security team members, listening to Pepper rant on. “Honey if you could just let me explain… I was out for a run and I heard shouting and when I arrived a ton of people were on the ground and then the cops showed up. I literally had nothing to do with it. Now Pepper I have to go, I need to call someone. I love you.” Pepper grudgingly admitted she loved him too and disconnected, and Tony waited for a second before calling Jarvis. “Jarvis I have a little job for you to do.” 


	2. Burnt Eggs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: very naughty language.

Tony Stark woke with a jolt, his ass numb from sitting in one position too long. With a groan he rubbed his stiff neck and asked Jarvis why he hadn't woken Tony up earlier. “You told me not to, sir. You said you only wanted me to inform you when the calculations were finished and they're still not ready.” Tony groaned again and leaned forwards to rest his elbows on the desk. “You have the best hardware money can buy and you're still not done five hours later?” The AI was silent for a moment. “To be perfectly honest with you sir I've also been playing solitaire during that time.” Tony rubbed his face. “Solitaire.” He batted at the keyboard in front of him and sure enough a game popped up on the screen. “Sorry Mr Stark.” The game closed and Tony got up to find something in the way of food.

 

He was upstairs in the kitchen making a crude facsimile of eggs on toast when Jarvis spoke again. “Sir the calculations are now finished.” Tony's head popped up and he hurried back downstairs. “Give me a look Jarvis.” He stood there leg jiggling as the computer got himself together. “Based on the reported sightings of the new suit taken from the Facebook fanpage that's been set up, as well as all possible sightings reported on Twitter and police reports, I have calculated that the new suit is attacking drug dealers associated with the Thousand Eyes gang. Armed with that knowledge, I have come up with three possible locations where the new suit will be tonight, assuming the pilot isn't hospitalized from the gunshot they received.”

 

Tony leaned forwards and looked at the 3D map intently. “They won't let that stop them.” Jarvis sighed. “Of course not, sir, if they're anything like you.” Tony nodded absently. “Which one of these is the most likely?” The computer expanded the map. “This location here. Sir may I recommend caution? This isn't a place you should go after dark. To tell you the truth though I don't know if you should go there at all, based on the police reports.” Tony ignored his butler and noted down the location on his phone. “Sir? Your eggs are burning…”

 

*

 

As he sat waiting in the dark alley for the new suit to show up, Tony wondered why drug dealers always picked the most cliche places to do their business. Dark alleys were so last year, he mused as he checked his watch. All the cool kids were doing their illegal activities in dimly-lit car parks now. The ex-superhero fidgeted: he’d never been very good at staying still and his excitement was making it even harder for him to remain quiet and motionless. For the occasion he’d brought along a pair of night vision goggles and as he heard footsteps coming down the alley he slipped them on and watched the figure approach. It was the large muscular man from the night before, shotgun in hand and bag over his shoulder. Quickly Tony scanned the rest of the alley; no new suit in sight. Feeling a little disappointed, Tony watched as the muscular drug dealer continued his way down the alley… and suddenly disappear underneath a shiny black mass.

 

He ripped the goggles from his head and spotted the new suit rampaging its feet across the bad guy’s body. The shotgun went spinning away under a dumpster and the new suit knelt on the prone form to give his face a pummeling. The sound of breaking bones was sickening, and the dull thwap of flesh being struck by overpowered metal made Tony start to feel bad for the drug dealer. “Hey!” His shout didn’t even make the suit pilot look up, and they continued to pummel the prone form of the drug dealer despite the fact he was probably dead. Tony ran towards the new suit and wrapped his arms around them to heave them off, only partially succeeding: he filed away the knowledge that it felt like the suit was made of an old car for later when he wasn't struggling with it.

 

The pilot turned on him. _“The fuck you think you're doing?”_ the voice was modulated again, peaking high in apparent panic. Tony let them go and stepped back. “Stopping you from killing him! No matter what he did he deserves a fair trial.” The suit's pilot pushed him backwards. _“Fuck you! He won't get a trial! Every time he cops a plea and walks.”_ the pilot pushed him again. _“This fucking asshat has every pig by the tail and every judge by the cock and you're suggesting I let them take him in? He'd probably sue me and win!”_ Tony shook his head. “Doesn't mean you should kill him.” The pilot pushed him again. _“It means I'm the only one who can take him out! Killing him is the only way to... the only way to deal with him forever!”_ Tony looked behind the pilot. “Either way, he's gone.” The pilot turned and looked. _“No!!”_ they smashed a fist through a nearby concrete wall and Tony suddenly appreciated just how tough the muscly drug dealer was.

 

The billionaire took a chance. “Look... do you want to grab a coffee and some donuts or something and talk about this stuff? I'm super curious about you.” The pilot turned to look him and he extended a hand. “Tony Stark. The original Iron Man.” He expected the pilot to go into fan-related shock and accept. He never dreamed that he'd be grabbed by the arm and thrown across the alley into the side of a dumpster. _“ FUCK YOU YOU UNBELIEVABLY SELFISH CUNT OF A MAN”_ One of those ridiculously strong punches was sent his way but he managed to scramble away and was very glad he did as the dumpster where his head had been crumpled unpleasantly. “What the hell is your problem kid?? If you don't like donuts we can get something else!” the pilot came after him again. _“I don't want any of your fucking donuts!!”_ they grabbed him again and he tried to counter their hold but the suit was too strong so despite being a good head taller (and quite a bit wider) than the pilot he was thrown around again. This time the pilot paused and didn't come after him. Instead they turned and there was the sound of firing thrusters. _“Fuck you Tony Stark!”_ They took off running, going far faster than a human should have been able to, disappearing down the alley leaving Tony crumpled in a heap wondering just what was going on.

 

He struggled to sit up. “Jarvis?” the AI responded in his ear. “Very interesting conversation, sir. Very pithy. May I compliment you on your wonderful way with people?” Tony felt around in his pockets for his phone. “None of your sass right now Jarvis, do your job.” The AI seemed to sigh. “Yes sir. Target is moving east through the back streets at an alarming rate.” Tony managed to get all the way up and rubbed his arm; everything was already starting to bruise from the thrashing he’d received. “Keep an eye on the target’s progress, and tell me when they stop.” He headed out of the alley towards the nearest lights and Jarvis affirmed that he would indeed keep an eye on it as requested.

 

Tony was stuffing his face with donuts, trying to soothe his ego at an all-night diner, when his phone lit up and Jarvis chirped again. “Sir? The suit has remained stationary for ten minutes.” Tony put down the donut and took a drink of coffee. “So why didn’t you tell me five minutes ago?” Jarvis was silent and Tony sighed. “Solitaire again?” The AI sounded sheepish. “It was a very close game sir.” Tony just groaned; he regretted ever installing the game on Jarvis’ software. “I’ll deal with you later. What’s the address?”

 

*

 

The address was in one of the worst neighborhoods in the city. The block was overrun with weeds and all the grass was dead, and the house itself looked like it had been abandoned for several years. Of special interest to Tony was the garage, which actually didn’t have a door; the whole thing had been bricked up. “Jarvis who owns this place?” The AI searched through his databanks. “No idea, sir. Last record was several years ago, belonging to Diego Perez... now deceased. His wife is in a nursing home. By all accounts the house should be abandoned, there's real estate listings up on it.” Tony rubbed his beard. “Curious.”

 

He hopped out of his car, despite Jarvis’ urgings not to, and headed over to the house to peer into the windows. It was dark inside but there was faint glow he could see coming from the direction of the bricked-up garage; he wiped the window to get a better look, and then skulked over to try the door. Locked, but that wasn’t an issue for him. Tony bent down and picked the lock with relative ease, slipping inside. The house was full of dust but there were footprints through it leading in from the front door towards the garage, and Tony took a look through the rest of the house. He walked through the lounge and looked at the pictures framed on the wall.

 

They showed a lifetime of memories, from a young couple’s wedding to moving to America to the birth of their child to lots of pictures of a chubby baby turning into a beautiful woman as the couple aged and shrank. Tony felt an eerie familiarity as he looked at the pictures of the young woman, and as he looked at pictures of her attending college his jaw dropped; he was in several of the photos, aged just sixteen. Suddenly a memory came flooding back; he’d been in love with the woman in the photos. “What was her name…?” he mused out loud, rubbing his beard. Tony looked at another of the photos of her and remembered. “Angelica…” he took the photo off the wall and smiled fondly at it. She’d been the second woman he’d ever slept with, but she’d disappeared from classes soon afterwards and he never saw (or thought about) her again. The rest of the pictures didn’t show Angelica, just the old couple and he wondered what had happened to her.

 

There was a muffled crash from the garage, and Tony remembered that he wasn’t alone in the house. He put the picture back and headed towards the garage, where another muffled crash made him jump. Slowly he eased the door open and peered through it; familiar workshop smells assaulted him first, followed by a tiny sliver of light showing tools strewn about and flickering computer monitors. Wanting to see more he eased the door open a little bit more, revealing more of the workspace; it was exactly what he’d thought it was going to be, full of scrap electronics and bits of metal. From his limited view he could see the suit of black armor hanging from the roof from heavy-load cables, and a black chestplate discarded on the floor that had obviously been the one that had been on the receiving end of the shotgun blast the night before. Before he could see any more than that a wrench went sailing past and bounced off one of the walls and he ducked back into the main house to hide.

 

It was followed by a stream of curses and the sound of pained groans. There was a scraping noise that Tony figured was the wrench being picked up off the floor and then nothing. Thinking it was safe he crept back to the door and peeked in to see a small human shape tightening something on the suit and muttering. “Tony Stark, the original Iron Man. Whoopdefuckingdoo for that asshole. All that money and he couldn’t even do a single thing right...” the wrench was thrown away again with a clang and the figure stomped over to the glowing monitors to type with quick vicious strokes. “Do I look like a man to them??” Tony had to agree with the figure: now she was in front of the light he could see she wasn't a man.

 

Suddenly a certain well-known song with lyrics about how if a guy liked it they should have put a ring on it started playing loudly from Tony’s pocket, and he froze in panic. He fumbled around to pull it out and turn it off, blinding himself in the process with the bright light from the screen, and so didn’t see the girl from the garage pick up the wrench and open the door all the way. He also didn’t see her raise the wrench, but he did feel it when she brought it down on his head as hard as she could, and then he didn’t see or feel much of anything as he slumped unconscious on the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shameless plug of other story!!! http://archiveofourown.org/works/2278167/chapters/5006220
> 
> I won't apologise for taking forever to write this because it takes as long as it needs to... but I will say that the more attention (especially comments, likes and kudos) a story gets the more likely I am to want to work on a new chapter.


	3. Tony Stark Is Bad At Business

Sophia Perez stared at the man slumped on the floor. “Shit! Shit shit shit shit shit…” she dropped the wrench and crouched down to check that he was still breathing; he was, luckily. She felt around for a lightswitch, found one and flicked it but nothing happened. No lights flared into existence and she remembered too late that none of the bulbs in the main house worked. Sophia bit her lip and looked down at the dark shape at her feet: if he were a thief he was doing a very bad job of it. She felt around for her phone and turned on the torch function. What she saw made her gasp. Goddamn Tony Stark was unconscious on her kitchen floor!

 

Suddenly getting him medical attention didn't seem so high up on the list of priorities and instead she stared at the man who had been so disgustingly arrogant. He groaned: clearly she hadn't hit him hard enough and she picked up the wrench to finish the job but his eyes flew open and focused eerily well on her in the scant light of her phone torch. “Angelica...?” he sat up and rubbed his head. “Ow.” Sophia stood there panicking as he shakily got to his feet. He finally turned to look at her better. “Wait you're not Angelica... you look so much like her though. Who are you?” Sophia's hands were shaking but in rage or fear she didn't know exactly. “Sophia Perez and you are trespassing on my property.” the idiot man ran a hand through his hair and winced when it contacted the part she'd hit. “Records said this place was owned by the bank. So, Sophia Perez, I think we're both trespassers here.”

 

He leaned forwards and gave her another intense look. “I've gotta hand it to you kiddo your suit is pretty amazing for found materials. Did you write the software yourself?” Sophia hefted the wrench again and took a step back. “I have no idea what you're talking about you creep but if you don't get out of here right now I'll hit you again with this.” Tony laughed. “Come on I've seen your workshop... ow!” he backed up and rubbed the new sore spot she'd just made on his head. “Now get out!!” She brandished the wrench and he turned towards the door. “Ok ok jeez stop hitting me! I'm going to leave my card with you, call at any time if you need anything.” She smashed the wrench into his hand and he dropped the card on the floor with a yelp. “WHY THE FUCK WOULD I NEED ANYTHING FROM YOU?? You had your chance to help!” She chased him from the house and slammed the door behind him and locked it. She was breathing hard near tears and dropped the wrench from numb hands. “Unbelievable!”

 

The teen went back to her workshop and looked at the suit she'd been working so hard on. “Just a few more hours and you'll be up and running better than ever.” she sat on her work stool and spun to look at the bench where she created her designs. “He's not going to give up just like that. I'm going to have to do something about it.” She grabbed a fresh sheet of paper and got to work.

 

*

 

Tony Stark sat morosely in his car, idly flicking through the local radio stations without really hearing anything. His attempts to make friends with the kid had failed, and he couldn’t quite get over the weird connection with his old girlfriend. He rubbed the sore spots on his head and cleared his throat. “Jarvis, get me all the records on Sophia Perez.” For once the AI did as he was asked. “As you like, sir.” A display popped up on his windscreen and Jarvis started explaining. “Sophia Perez. Daughter of your old flame, Angelica Perez, granddaughter of Diego and Maria Perez. Her school records were impeccable until three years ago, and now she’s a D-average student with noted truancy and issues with authority.” The AI paused. “Truancy and issues with authority sounds familiar, doesn’t it sir?” Tony raised an eyebrow. “Three years ago… what happened three years ago?” The butler apparently sifted through some more records. “Ah. I’m sorry sir… but Angelica Perez died in a drug-related shooting. The killer was never caught but the police believe it was done by a Thousand Eyes gang member.”

 

Suddenly things started to make sense. The targeting of drug-related crimes, especially the Thousand Eyes gang. The hatred in her voice when she'd beat him up for suggesting she let the ringleader go. “She's waging a one-girl war on drugs. Personally I'd have started out with something a little smaller.” The sass coming from Jarvis was almost palpable and Tony quickly snapped "not a word from you”. Jarvis would have shrugged if he could. “I wasn't going to say anything sir. Merely remind you that your first official outing in your suit was a counterterrorism operation. In a foreign country. And you were attacked by the US Armed Forces.” Tony ignored him and focused on the screen. “What school does she go to?”

 

*

 

Sophia trickled towards school, hating every second she was away from her workshop. She felt that school was unnecessary, and frequently informed any authority that would listen of that fact. They never agreed with her, and so she was dragged in day after day to put in barely minimum effort. She'd been sent to the school psychologists office more times than any other student on record, especially after her mother had been killed, but she ignored the insistence that she was depressed or delusional. She was just hungry for the justice her family had been denied by the system of crooked cops and judges. Sophia's stomach grumbled and gurgled reminding her that she was also just straight up hungry. A quick glance around showed no one was watching her, and she trailed over to the lunchroom kitchen.

 

The door was locked as usual but that was never a problem for her; she expertly picked the lock and ducked inside. Fresh food was all over the place and she picked and chose her way through it to give herself a decent meal. A voice made her drop behind the nearest counter but it wasn't addressing her. The two cooks were leaning against the window smoking and discussing the new suit. Sophia spotted a tray with fresh donuts and couldn’t resist scurrying over to them, grabbing a handful before heading back towards the door and out with no-one the wiser.

 

The cooks' discussion was echoed through the school: it seemed like every single one of the students was talking about her little project. “I heard that Tony Stark has come out of retirement!” another student scoffed. “Well I heard that it’s a robot owned by Shield to replace Iron Man.” A third student rolled their eyes. “Why would Shield make a robot that fights drug dealers in only one city? Surely they'd make hundreds and have them patrol the streets.” The second student shrugged. “Maybe it’ s gone rogue? Decided justice wasn't being handed out correctly by the cops and broken its programming to go on a wild rampage across the city?” the other two laughed and the first student patted his friend. “Dude you're too imaginative.”

 

A hand was placed on her shoulder, making her jump. “Miss Perez.” She turned to find her math teacher smiling grimly at her. The woman was always far too chipper, and her ridiculously positive attitude at any and all hours of the day had made her a popular target of the student body. “I noticed you weren’t at school yesterday. Everything alright?” Sophia shrugged and turned back to her locker. “Everything’s fine. Just lost track of the day.” The teen unconsciously touched her injured chest to check if it still hurt and then adjusted her shirt again to make sure the bandages were invisible. A stack of papers were pushed into her hands. “I had a quick whip-around in the staff room and collected your homework for you. Mr Carter is very anxious for you to hand in your project, he said it’s a week late at this point.” The teacher put her hands on her hips and looked ready to lecture.

 

Sophia just dropped the papers into the bottom of her locker. “He’ll get it when he gets it.” The teacher’s jaw dropped. “I’ve never met someone with such a lack of basic respect…” before she could really get going a voice interrupted them. “Excuse me.” Sophia didn’t turn; she’d stopped caring about anything in the school years ago. The teacher seemed stunned though, and so she glanced at whoever it was who’d spoken and immediately regretted doing so. Tony motherfucking Stark was standing there grinning like the smarmy asshole he was. “I’m looking for classroom 209? I’m meant to give a lecture to the class there.” The teacher stuttered and then looked at Sophia. “Aren’t you in 209 this lesson, Sophia?” The teenager furnished the teacher with a look of pure hatred and turned back to her locker to throw more books around.

 

She slammed the locker closed and stalked off without another word, doing her best to ignore the way Stark hurried after her with a pithy quip to the math teacher. She stormed up the stairs and swept along the corridor, checking the time with a sinking feeling as Stark followed her. “Hey kiddo… slow down.” She stopped at his words and whirled around to face him. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing you psycho? Are you following me?” Stark put up his hands in defense. “Relax kiddo I’m just interested in what you’re doing. Clearly you’re smart enough to build… that… but you’re failing at school?” Sophia narrowed her eyes at him. “And what business is that of yours, Stark? Let me answer for you. It’s none. None of your business.” She turned around again and walked quickly to room 209 hoping he wouldn’t follow but of course, he did.

 

Despite her best effort to slip into the room unnoticed, her teacher looked up and frowned at her. “Miss Perez… another late.” He got halfway through making a note on a piece of paper when Tony Stark entered the room. “Yeah sorry that was because of me. I couldn’t find the room and I asked this lovely polite young lady to help me out. You know this school is like a labyrinth?” The classroom erupted into gasps and excited chatter and Sophia slunk unnoticed to her seat. Stark headed to the front of the room and sent her a thumbs up. “Thanks for helping me out kiddo, I have a terrible sense of direction. I need a GPS to find my way around my own house.” He laughed at his own joke and then engaged the teacher in mindless chatter as Sophia sank down in her seat and fixed her eyes on the crappy laminate of the table in front of her as all around the noise level rose higher and higher in excitement.

 

Finally the teacher seemed to have had enough. “ALRIGHT EVERYONE!” the chatter faded away except for a few muttering students in a corner. The teacher ignored them and swept a hand up to gesture to Stark who was standing there grinning like a loon. “I’m sure everyone knows Tony Stark, owner and CEO of Stark Industries. He’s here today to give a talk, presumably about how to run a successful business since this is Business Studies class. Mr. Stark?” Stark nodded and stepped forwards. “Ok kids. I’m going to admit something. I have no idea how to run a successful business. I’ve been very fortunate that the staff I hired know a lot more about this stuff than I do. I just like making things. Any questions?” The rest of the class collectively giggled and Sophia ignored him, choosing instead to plan suit upgrades in her notebook.

 

Stark fielded questions about his old suits and told some stories about the Avengers, and before she could cover up what she was doing he’d pulled the notebook out from under her pencil and looked at it. “Huh. Interesting ideas. I like this one… the sticky incapacitator one. If I were still making suits I’d borrow some of these - vastly improved, of course.” Sopha snatched at the book but he held it away and leafed through it. “Hmm some really good stuff in here. You should consider going into robotics.” She glared at Stark and pulled the book back. He gave it up with another gross smirk and then rifled through his pockets. “If you’re interested, we can always use interns at the lab. Give me a call.” He handed her a card and the teacher stood. “Mr Stark I wouldn’t waste your time with her. Miss Perez is one of our… much less motivated students. However I can point you towards some students that show a lot more potential and drive.” Stark blinked at him and then shrugged. “Send their names to my assistant and we’ll see what we can do.” He fielded a few more questions and then looked at his watch. “Sorry everyone I have a meeting soon. Miss Perez… can I trouble you to help me find my way out again?”

 

Sophia glared at him and the teacher rushed to offer someone else but Stark held up his hand. “She did a great job shepherding me around last time.” He beckoned to Sophia and she reluctantly got up and led him out of the classroom. He looked at his watch again. “So kiddo do you want to come get some breakfast?” She looked at him. “I’m meant to be in class.” Stark shrugged. “Business Studies is a waste of time. I recommend completely ignoring any and all of it. I also recommend showing me your private suit design book over breakfast. I’ll pay, of course.” Sophia shook her head. “No. First of all, I’m not allowed to leave school grounds and second of all, just no!” Stark shook his head. “Well if you want to be all lame and stay here and go back to Business Studies… be my guest.” Sophia stopped walking and weighed the situation: this was an excuse not to go back to class all wrapped up in a neat little package. She could easily blame Stark for her absence. But on the other hand she’d have to associate with Tony fucking Stark, the most arrogant piece of shit in a city of arrogant shits.

  
Her stomach ended up being the deciding factor; fed up of a steady diet of cheap rice, it growled loudly enough to echo. Stark gave her a puzzled yet amused look and she refused to look at him. “Fine. We can go get some stupid food.”

 


	4. Mobile Justice

The two stared at each other across a crappy melamine table, a full breakfast in front of one and “just a cup of coffee” in front of the other. The animosity in the gaze of the teenage girl was almost strong enough to be physical, while the man in the expensive suit seemed unconcerned as he busied himself with the cup. He couldn’t help wincing at the way the teenager across from him tore into her food; she was acting like a hungry predator devouring some unfortunate prey animal. She seemed content to ignore him, choosing to doodle around on a smartphone.

 

Tony’s eyes fixed onto the phone, then widened as he recognised it. “Hey that’s mine!” She glanced at him and went back to looking at it. “Yeah. You need to come up with a better password.” She nimbly flicked her thumb over the screen and then leaned back and held the phone away as he made a grab for it, drinking her milkshake with insulting slurps. “Cute pictures on here.” The girl then somehow managed to activate Jarvis and seemed fascinated by the concept of an AI butler. Tony held his hand out and waited, and eventually she slid it back to him across the table with a sulky pout. He pocketed it quickly. “So. Sophia. I wanted to talk to you about… what I saw in your house.” She finished her milkshake with a slurp that was more noncommittal than insulting and blinked at him and said nothing. Stark cleared his throat. “You need to stop. The cops are really angry and when they’re angry they tend to shoot first and ask questions later. I know your suit can take a shotgun blast at close range but that was one shot with no follow-up. The cops aren’t going to leave you alone if they get you vulnerable like that.” He looked at her and saw she was staring disinterestedly at the tabletop.

 

He recognised her expression; she was letting him talk himself out and would then just go ahead and keep doing what she was doing anyway. It was a familiar expression somehow but he just couldn’t place it, so instead he tried a different track. “Ok. Well I can see you’re not going to listen to me telling you not to… what if I help you?” That got her attention; her eyes flicked up to meet his and then back down to the table. “Nope.” Her voice was blunt but Tony thought there was something more behind it. “Funding… equipment… parts… whatever you need. You could actually make a decent suit and go after the bad guys properly. And I can help you hide. You’re attracting attention Sophia, and not just from the cops. From S.H.I.E.L.D, too, and the army. They’re all worried you’re a rogue element and pose a threat to national security.” The teenager snorted. “At least I’d get to meet some of the Avengers then.” Tony leaned forwards. “If you let me help you, I could take you to meet them without them trying to put handcuffs on you.” She mopped up some of the remaining food on her plate with her fork and bit it with another savage snap of her teeth, but her eyes were thoughtful.

  
Eventually she dropped the fork and wiped her mouth on a cheery paper napkin. “Thanks for breakfast, buttface.” She started to get up and Tony put out a hand to stall her. “What about my offer?” She looked at him with scorn. “I already said no twice. Now stop stalking me, it’s getting weird.” The teenager turned to go and Tony got up to call after her “have you thought about what you’re going to do after you’ve finished your crusade?” Sophia stopped in her tracks, and turned. “No. There’s nothing except this. There’s nothing except the mission.” She walked out with a little wave that turned into a one-finger salute and Tony sank back into the seat. _“Bummer, sir.”_

 

*

 

Sophia didn’t go back to class. Instead she elected to wander downtown to the local junkyard to look for parts: she hopped the fence and slipped down into the stacks of car parts and components. It didn’t take the teenager long to start slipping bits and pieces here and there into her pockets; the owner never noticed her little shopping trips, even when she took a whole car away in parts.

 

As she poked through a pile of junk looking for anything she could work, she tried her hardest to ignore Stark’s voice echoing in her head. _“Funding… equipment… parts… whatever you want.”_ She shook it, trying to ignore his voice, and moved aside a rusty chunk of scrap to look underneath. A tiny, more reasonable part of her said that she was being ridiculous: with Stark’s help, she would be able to take out the whole gang and exact justice in no time instead of having to rebuild her suit every time she took it out thanks to parts continually falling off… and, the little reasonable voice continued, he’d be able to help her get the thrusters on it working so she could fly. “No.” she told the voice. Whatever help he would give her was too little, too late. She still remembered after all these years the way her mother had cried when…. Sophia shook her head again and clutched her hand tightly around a smooth metal pole. It was still too painful to think about her mother.

 

Her bag and pockets sufficiently filled with parts, the young woman headed for home already visualising the way the new stuff would fit onto the suit in her head. She stopped dead when she saw expensive cars parked outside her house. They were the rides of the two people she feared and hated the most: Tony Stark's vanity-plated silver convertible, and the huge shiny black monster belonging to the boss of the real estate agent who was trying to sell her house. Sophia ducked behind some trash cans and took a few deep breaths: the Stark bastard had doublecrossed her! He couldn't get her to shut down voluntarily so he was going behind her back and removing her only base of operations. It was a typical sneaky underhanded move by Stark and she was surprised that it hadn't occurred to her that he would do this. After all hadn't he shown before that he could be completely dishonest and just generally evil?

 

Voices behind her made her peek out from behind her shelter. “Mr. Stark, I'm still not sure what you want to do with this place but since you're offering market price for it and you're willing to pay today...” the agent stuck out his hand for Stark to shake. “I’ll write up the relevant paperwork when I get back to the office and send it through for you to sign.” They shook hands and the agent grinned that big flashy grin that made Sophia want to punch him. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to have sold this place. It’s been dragging my books down for two years now, ever since the old man who owned it died. Sad, though. His granddaughter put up a hell of a fight but she’s just a kid, so who cares?” It took all of the ‘just a kid’s strength not to rush across the street and take the man out.

 

The agent kept talking but she wasn’t listening, instead focusing with laser precision on Stark; he wiped the hand he’d used to shake the agents’ on his expensive suit with a look of disgust and nodded along with the prattle, subtly guiding the man to his monstrous black car. “Yes, yes of course Mr Bland. I’m sorry I interrupted your very important meeting to call you down here… can I take possession of the keys right now? I’d like to go in and really see what needs to be taken care of in there.” The agent blinked a little bit and continued to blather platitudes as he handed over the keys. “Of course, Mr Stark! When someone of your,” he coughed delicately “calibre… calls and expresses interest in something, I’m more than happy to drop everything to help you out. Even if the house in question isn't part of my portfolio.” Stark looked interested. “It's not? Then why isn't the agent responsible for it here instead?” The agent shook his head. “Mr Sullivan isn’t ready to deal with someone like you, sir… now while we’re talking, can I interest you in some interesting property on the coast? There’s some really good deals on bayfront property…” Stark shook his head and ushered the agent into his car.

 

The agent drove off and Stark turned to look at the house. He seemed like he was deliberately ignoring her, and slowly headed inside. Sophia grimaced: he was going to force her to confront him inside. With a quick look either way up the street, she darted across and loitered outside clutching her bag of scraps. With a deep breath she opened the door and found Tony Stark standing by the wall of photos holding the picture of her mother. He didn't look up. “I couldn't quite place why you were familiar until I saw this photo of your mother.” He gave an odd smile and spoke gently. “You look a lot like her.” Her eyes focused on the photo he had taken off the wall. “How dare you touch that!” She snatched it away from him and held it, glaring at him. He didn't seem phased and just continued to speak gently. “I heard about how she was killed. How the cops still haven't solved the murder three years later.”

 

Sophia looked down at the picture in her hands for a second before looking back at Stark with as much hatred as she could muster. “Exactly what do you think you’re trying to achieve here?” Stark gave her another gentle smile. “I had my AI run some DNA tests. You’re… my… I hadn’t realised you were… if only your mother had said…” Sophia’s gut clenched; so he’d finally figured it out. “She TRIED. Twice. You were so blackout drunk the first time you didn’t remember. And the second time… she went to talk to you and you wouldn’t even see her.” Her hands had started to shake and she had to resist throwing the picture at him. His smile wavered and she pressed on. “She was on her way to see you that night. Grandma was in the nursing home… grandpa had just died… we couldn’t afford a funeral…” a shaky hand swiped at the tears falling from her eyes. “... and then she was… she was…”

 

She hadn’t even heard him move but suddenly his arms were around her, holding her tight against him in a hug. She found herself crying into his expensive suit, taking a petty amount of joy in ruining it with her tears. Eventually, after she’d put enough of a wet patch on his shoulder, she pulled away and he handed her his silk pocket square to wipe her eyes. Sophia vengefully blew her nose on it too and handed it back. She pushed past him to put the picture in her arms back on the wall, and then walked with head held high to her workshop. She didn’t stop him following her; what was the point now? She’d screwed up and admitted something that she’d never wanted to admit to herself. The girl dumped her bag on the workbench and sat, opening it to pull out components and ignoring Stark as he wandered in behind her and gave a soft noise of surprise.

 

Her suit was hanging in the middle of the room hooked up to her computer (home-made from scavenged parts, like the rest of the technology in the place). The rest of the space that wasn’t taken up by welding gear or her workbench was covered in shelving full of parts: stuff that most people would consider junk, Sophia was able to turn into mobile justice. Schematics papered the wall and part of the workbench, and it was these that caught Stark’s eye first. “Interesting ideas… not sure about the spikes…” he picked up a discarded piece and held it up to the light to look at it better. She continued to ignore him, piling the parts she’d got into little heaps according to her own inscrutable logic. Stark wandered over to the suit and poked at it, grabbing the helmet and looking at the inside with interest. “Does this have a heads-up when you’re operating?” She didn’t look up from the parts she was fiddling with. “Yes. Nothing as fancy as yours were but I get some basic night vision and directional cameras.” She got up and grabbed one of the suit's arms before returning to her bench and opening the casing with a few deft twists of her screwdriver.

 

Stark continued to admire the suit for a few more minutes, before wandering back over to see what she was doing. His hand sifted through the schematics, and finally settled on one that had crumpled and uncrumpled a few times. “You've been trying to work on the thrusters?” She glanced at the paper in his hand and then looked back down at her work without comment. He held it up to the lamp and leaned against the bench. “Not bad. You’re almost there. Can I make a few suggestions?” Without waiting for permission he grabbed a pencil and started scribbling. Sophia put down her soldering iron and watched his frantic scribbling, and her eyes widened. “Oh!” she said it softly as revelation dawned, and she grabbed her own pencil to work on the piece of paper.

 

When they both stood back a few minutes later, there was completed schematic for a pair of boot-mounted thrusters and stabilisers. Sophia grabbed it up to look at it more closely (and to double-check Stark’s math), and then realised that the parts that made up the thrusters would have to be custom-machined. She tossed it aside with a groan about that and then picked up her soldering iron again. “You know… I can help you out with the custom machining… and get you better supplies…” he nudged a pile with his foot and sent a few things tinkling down the side. She didn't answer him; she was concentrating on soldering and pretending not to hear him.

 

Inside, two parts of her were fighting a vicious battle. On one side there was the thirst for justice for her mother, at any cost. On the other was the part of her that still very much hated Tony Stark for what he’d done to her family, intentionally or not. The tiny reasonable voice inside her head asked why she didn't just do both, using his offer of getting her parts and protection from S.H.I.E.L.D without involving him further in her life. _“After all,”_ murmured the voice, _“it’s not like he’s been very involved in it before now. He’ll lose interest in a couple of weeks and we can go back to doing what we want.”_ She found she agreed with the voice, and the side of herself that hated him subsided with a nasty hissing. He’d apparently not noticed her silence, and had continued to talk. “Ok!” her voice cut him off and he turned to look at her. “Ok… you can help me out.” He gave her a grin that looked like the sun coming out after a storm. “Say it again, but call me what I am this time.” She cringed and her hatred almost won again, but she was able to spit out the words he wanted like they were poison.  “Ok. You can help me out… dad."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok I'll admit it, I'm having a lot of fun writing this. I apologise for the lateness of the update (and also apologise in advance for the future lack of updates because that's just how I roll apparently). My time to write is pretty limited these days, and even though my other fic has way more readers/kudos, this is the one I'm currently enjoying writing the most and keep coming back to work on. If you like my slightly soap opera-y story, consider leaving a comment or kudos to let me know!


	5. Stark Industries

Sophia sat, arms crossed, in the bright morning sunlight streaming into the glass-walled foyer of Stark Industries. All around her there were people in suits: security guys keeping an eye on her, office workers carrying briefcases, researchers wearing lab coats carrying armfuls of papers. She was waiting for Stark (and she refused to call him ‘father’) to come down from his office and collect her for a tour of his company that she'd been pressganged into taking by the combined force of her teachers. The security guy who’d been assigned to babysit her in the meantime kept stealing glances at her, and finally she looked up in time to meet his eyes and held his gaze with a glare. “What?” He looked away and coughed awkwardly, and she rolled her eyes at him and went back to sulking.

 

“Sophia!” She looked up when she heard her name, and forced a weak smile when she saw Stark waving at her from one of the many balconies. She waved back and then rolled her eyes when he looked away to talk to the businessman toadies accompanying him. She pulled off the ID clipped to her jacket and examined it, noting it would let her into the cafeteria and gift shop, but put it back on when the security guard frowned at her and tapped his own, and instead played with the tag on the flat plastic folder-bag that contained her schematics.

 

Stark rushed down the stairs and hurried over to her; he was dressed in another expensive suit but he had an expression of childlike delight on his face that he was struggling to hide under the scrutiny of his employees. “Good to see you… I wasn’t sure if you were going to turn up.” She stood up and passed her folder from one hand to the other. “Of course. Going on this tour is a great opportunity for a student like me.” She gave him a meaningful look and he grinned wider. “Totally! Let’s get going.”

 

The tour started out going around the buildings, with Stark practically dragging her around by the hand showing her all the ins and outs of the company. They ended up in front of the arc reactor, rebuilt with new technology after an "unfortunate accident" with former CEO Obadiah Stane and a tiny case of jealousy. “Of course we had to make it look just like the old one. It's one of those things that just has to be done. I argued against it but Pepper said it would make the shareholders happy. She's so good at business.” Stark gave a fond smile and looked down briefly as he thought about his fiancé. Sophia coughed uncomfortably and turned to study the arc reactor. “This thing looks old as balls but you've used that element that kept your suit functioning instead of Palladium... you're losing at least 11% power efficiency by having it be circular.” Stark seemed to radiate pride at her wry observation. “I'm well aware. Another argument I lost to Pepper. She said the round was nicer and more traditional since the old one was circular.” He turned to go but paused and looked back at her “and - not that it matters - I make it 11.01% power lost.” She rolled her eyes at him and followed him through the door back out muttering about pedantics and how she'd calculated that too but thought a rounded down 11 was close enough for most normal people.

 

Eventually the pair of them made their way through a labyrinthine set of identical grey corridors and ended up in front of a frosted glass door, and Stark gave her the biggest grin she’d seen so far. He pulled an access card from his pocket and waved it in what he clearly thought was an enticing manner. “See this? This is your golden ticket. I had to clear a bunch of researchers out of this lab and they’re kinda pissed about it. But it was worth it. There’s only two access cards now, this one and one for me.” He held it out to her and she gingerly took it. It was another motion for her to swipe it, and the door opened to reveal an electronic wonderland. Everywhere she looked there was top-of-the-line equipment. Shelves upon shelves of supplies: huge swathes of raw materials, new electronics components, every tool imaginable… Sophia felt herself go weak at the knees at the sight and took a few shaky steps towards the workbenches. “Well…? Do you like it?” She sat on a work stool and spun to face him, unable to contain the soaring feeling and accompanying smile. He sat next to her and looked pointedly at her design portfolio, which she then opened and spread on the huge table in front of her.

 

A pale blue light scanned over the documents and she jerked her hand back in surprise. “I gave you your own AI!” Stark looked delighted as digital mockups started flying around and assembling themselves from her drawings. “Scanning’s all complete Mr. S!” The voice was girlier, and seemed very excited to be helping. “She's fully programmed to help you. She knows where everything is and how to work all the machines. Don’t worry about privacy… all your stuff is going to a private server. Even S.H.I.E.L.D couldn’t get into it.” Sophia stared at the nearest digital mockup; this whole thing was way beyond what she'd imagined.

 

Stark wasn’t done with the presents; he grabbed a large black gift bag from where it was sitting inconspicuously next to the workbench and put it in front of her. “And this is also for you.” The teenager warily looked into the bag and saw a few wrapped boxes. “What’s this for?” Stark looked uncomfortable. “Sixteen years of missed birthdays and Christmases…” Sophia stared at the bag; this was getting wildly out of hand. “I can’t accept this.” Stark sighed sharply and made an urging motion with his hand. “At least open them before you reject them!” She grudgingly reached into the bag and grabbed the first box. It was wrapped neatly in silver paper, which she carefully started taking off; gifts were rare and precious things, especially in the last few years, and every part of it was to be savoured. Once the paper was gone the box for the latest smartphone was clearly visible and she wasted no time in setting it to charge. Stark’s leg was jiggling impatiently and she spent some time thoroughly going through all the documentation in the phone’s box just to annoy him further.

 

Finally she gave up and grabbed the next box; this one was tubular and had something rattling around inside. Another careful paper removal operation later and she was looking in confusion at a document tube. “Open it!” At Stark’s urging she pulled out the end and unrolled the papers contained inside. As she saw what it was her jaw dropped. “My house? You’re giving me my house?” Stark nodded and she looked back at the property deed in her hands. “It’ll remain in my name until you’re eighteen, when I’ll sign it over to you.” Her jaw still somewhere in the vicinity of the basement she looked through the papers and only looked up again when Stark upended the tube onto the workbench to tip a set of keys out onto the surface. He pushed it towards her. “These are yours.” She took them and held them tightly; the prospect of losing her home to some stupid gentrification project had been a very real fear for her.

 

There were still things in the bag, and Stark started pulling them out and lining them up. Sophia took the next one, a silver envelope, and opened it carefully; it was a letter from the First Bank of Los Angeles. “A trust fund?” She looked at him and he nodded. “It’s easier than just throwing cash at you. Don’t worry about it. No one will find out. I’ve set up lots of them for various reasons over the years, no one’s going to notice one more.” Sophia slammed the letter down on the table; she’d been taught to never accept charity, and to work for what she wanted. “I can’t. Just getting money and not doing anything for it? It’s unthinkable!” Stark blinked. “But I want to take care of you.” Sophia shook her head and stood in a burst of anger. “No!” It took all of her self restraint not to storm out and instead she stomped over to look at a neatly-organised cupboard of electronic components. Stark followed her. “Would it help if I gave you a job here so you were earning it?”

 

The prospect of working for Stark Industries made her stomach churn in repulsion, but she really did need the money… “It would give you a reason to keep coming out here to work on the suit. Your duties would be practically nonexistent.” Sophia sneered. “Not exactly being subtle about this whole “I have a bastard child” thing, are you?” Stark waved a hand at the lab. “You may have noticed that subtlety isn’t my strongest trait.” Sophia rolled her eyes and grabbed some components from the cupboard. Stark spent some time texting before joining her at the workbench. “I can offer you a job as Stark Industries’ Chief Technology Officer. I had to let the last guy go for not knowing what wireless was.” Sophia’s eyes widened; she thought he was probably joking, but with Stark it was impossible to tell because he always looked like he was joking (especially when he was serious). He looked at her questioningly and she shook her head, and he copied the motion. “No? Ok… how about we make something up… like… Prototype Armament Technology Specialist? And we can call this the PAT department… which sounds a bit like the place company dogs go for attention… that's not a bad idea really...” He was rambling but Sophia let him talk on as she considered her options.

 

As much as she hated to admit it, she needed the money. Desperately. School fees were due soon: the last three years she’d been able to get by on pity and a scholarship, but because of her quest for justice (and also probably because her grades had done a dangerous nosedive to a D minus average) such leniency would probably not be extended to her again. Her mother had almost killed herself getting Sophia into that school because it had been what Sophia wanted more than anything, and Sophia had promised her when that she wouldn’t be kicked out. It was just hard to maintain a 4.0 GPA when you’re out all night doling out justice. She assembled the framework for a tiny robot out of the parts she’d grabbed as she thought; it would be very nice to be able to eat regularly and not have to rely on her skill as a thief to get food. Suddenly she tuned back into what he was saying; it was something about opening the last of her presents.

 

Sophia grabbed it off the bench and shook it a little next to her ear before opening the paper to reveal what looked like a plain black jewellery box. “Not jewellery… I’ll get robbed…” Stark snorted. “It’s not jewellery. But it might still get you robbed.” She opened it to reveal a set of car keys, and her eyes bulged as she took in the logo. “You bought me a fucking Ferrari??” Stark shrugged. “Bought for you… already had it and never use it… basically the same thing, right? Anyway it’s what dads do for their teens, buy them expensive cars they can’t handle.” She dropped the box on the table like it was white hot. “I’m not accepting this one. I can’t suddenly start driving around in a goddamn Ferrari, I’m just a poor high school student who’s meant to be sweeping up after your researchers and trying to get them to listen to my ideas… Do you know what people would think if I started driving something like that? They’d probably think I’ve seduced you into being my sugardaddy!” Stark looked vaguely ill. “Point taken… but I did spend quite a lot of money on the custom license plate…” She raised an eyebrow suspiciously. “What did you get?” He shot her a grin. “Stark Jr.” Sophia threw her hands up in the air in disgust. She spent the rest of the morning fooling around with the machines and getting to know her AI. The computer personality was bubbly and cheerful, wanting to help almost to the point of being too helpful. Stark showed her how to use the machines and equipment without killing herself and then stepped back slowly as she got more confident and started on her suit.

 

*

 

Sophia ran her hands along the basic metal skeleton: the suit was starting to get closer to her mental image of it. She'd been working on it all morning, and hadn't noticed Stark slipping in and out a few times; it stood to reason, then, that she jumped when he put his hand on her shoulder. “Hey kiddo it’s lunchtime, do you want to stop to eat or do you want to just keep working? Because I can have something delivered down.” The teenager stretched; she’d been sitting hunched over a circuit for the last hour and her back was hurting. “I’ll go get something.” Stark gave a sharp sniff. “Then I’ll come with you. Eating in the cafeteria will be something of a novelty, I guess… you know I think this is the longest I’ve ever spent on-site? I used to do most of my work at home.” As he talked he ushered her towards the door and out, heading for the exit as the door closed and audibly locked behind them. She gave the doors a longing look and he laughed. “It'll still be here when you're done eating.”

 

The two of them made their way up to the cafeteria and grabbed some food and a table. Sophia hadn't realised how hungry she was until she started eating, but she quickly devoured her food and poked around on her phone. Suddenly she became aware that Stark was watching her with a strangely paternal look and made a face at him in response. The last thing she needed was him getting sentimental. To try and snap him out of it she asked him what his fiancé thought about him suddenly having a child. His face took on a darker cast and he shook his head. “I haven’t told her about you yet. I don’t think she’d be too surprised but she’d probably be pretty upset with me. So it looks like we'll be avoiding that particular chat for a long, long time.” He looked sad and picked at his food for a while, and Sophia felt a small guilty twinge about upsetting him. It shocked her; for years now she’d hated this man with all her heart. But suddenly she was starting to feel guilty for making him feel bad? The teenager stomped on that guilty twinge as hard as she could, trying to kill it before it took root and made her feel something other than vague forced tolerance towards this man and his wonderful room full of parts... It seemed to settle down, and so she went back to her food and phone.

 

*

 

She'd fallen asleep waiting for something especially complex to finish 3D printing. The teenager woke up and discovered that Stark had draped his jacket over her to keep her warm (or possibly because the room lacked a coat hook) and was sitting a little further away from her soldering with an intense look of concentration on his face. She kept her head down on her arms and watched him: he looked totally different when he was working on something so small and intricate and not trying so hard to live up to the hilarious playboy ideal he thought everyone expected of him. He finished the part he was working on and wiped the soldering iron on his pants clearly without thinking and she winced slightly at the sizzle of expensive silk-wool blend frying. The movement made the blazer slide down off her shoulders and caught his eye, and she sat up and rubbed her eyes as he put the soldering iron back in its cradle. “What time is it?” He glanced at his watch. “Almost 2am... wow talk about time flying when you're having fun...” He looked back at her just in time to catch the huge yawn she gave in reply. “Look... your place is really far away. And mine is right around the corner. Do you want to stay over there? The guest bed is apparently comfortable and you can meet Jarvis...” In her sleep-addled state she found herself agreeing: anything was preferable to a fifteen year old mattress on the floor and thin blankets.

 

She barely noticed the walk out of the lab to Stark’s car, slept pretty much the whole way and didn't even really wake up when he picked her up to carry her to the guest room. He took her shoes off and then spent a few minutes just looking at her: she was an angry, drug-dealer-face-mashy miracle. Her face was a lot softer and more relaxed when she slept: she looked even more like her mother. Tony smiled as he recognised his nose, albeit smaller and more feminine but definitely his. He also recognised his chin, and the soft brown curls gently escaping her hair elastic were definitely from his side of the family too. It was all he could do not to stroke them out of his daughters face. Instead he signaled Jarvis to switch off the lights and left after just one more look. As he headed to his own bedroom he thought back over the day and bit his lip as their lunchtime conversation came back into his mind; how the hell was he going to explain all of this to Pepper? And, a lesser extent, to his friends in the Avengers?


	6. Chapter 6

Cold, unadulterated terror gripped her, sitting tight somewhere in her chest and slipping icy fingers up her throat to paralyse her voice. She was sitting in the back of her mum's crappy old car, and her mum was there sitting in the front seat looking up at the Stark Industries building glowing brightly in the orange semi-darkness of the LA night. She turned to look at Sophia and gave her a reassuring smile. “Don't worry baby, your dad will take care of you. We'll get through this.” Sophia wanted to scream a warning to her, to stop her getting out of the car and to force her to leave. But no sound escaped her mouth and, just like that night, her mother took the keys out of the ignition and got out of the car.

 

She saw it in a disorienting mix of slow motion and fast-forward; the huge muscled guy running up to her mother out of nowhere, a pistol in one hand and the other extended in a hideous claw as he ordered her to hand over the car keys. Her mum looked quickly at her and then shook her head. The guy didn’t hesitate; he pulled the trigger, and her body hit the side of the car with a loud thump and a visceral spray of blood across the window before falling out of view.

 

Sophia tried to scream again but her voice just wouldn’t work, and her fingers scrabbled across the far door looking for the latch. The killer bent down and grabbed the keys, and Sophia shrank against the door as she pulled on the latch and fell out of the back seat of the car. The killer got in the car and raced off with tires squealing as sirens started screaming and the lights of the cops approached, but Sophia just lay on the ground and looked over at her mother’s body. She crawled, the distance between them seeming to stretch on for miles, until her arms hit the pool of blood already cooling on the concrete of the sidewalk. Shakily she reached out to touch her mother but just as her fingers brushed her, Sophia’s body jerked violently and she woke up. Immediately she dry retched, flinging herself over the side of the bed and colliding painfully with the floor.

 

Her body tried its hardest to bring her stomach up through her mouth but nothing came and she took a few deep breaths to try and calm it down and to stop the shakes. _“Miss Perez?”_ The voice made her jump and look around; the room was dark and she couldn’t see who was there. A small light on the wall turned on to reveal that she was alone in the room. _“Miss, I am Jarvis… Mr Stark’s artificial butler. Are you alright?”_ She shook her head and pushed up to a sitting position. “I’m fine, really. Just a bad dream.” The AI sounded very concerned. _“Do you want me to call your father?”_ Sophia’s stomach flipped again and she dry retched once more. Before she could tell the butler not to call Stark, the door opened. “Sophia…!” Stark knelt beside her and took hold of her arm, one hand going to touch her cheek. His expression was panicked, and for some reason she was oddly glad to see him. “Are you ok? Do you need to go to the hospital?” She shook her head and closed her eyes. “No. I just had a really terrible dream.” He got up and pulled her upright, guiding her towards the edge of the bed and making her sit.

 

He seemed unsure of what to do, and dashed to the bathroom for a moment before returning with a glass of water. “I gotta tell you kiddo I've never had to deal with this before, I have no idea what I'm doing...” he handed her the water. “This seems right? I don't know.” She sipped it and he sat down next to her. “Wanna tell me what your nightmare was about?” Sophia shrugged noncommittally and they sat in silence for a little while. “I dreamt about the night my mum was gunned down. It happens sometimes, no big deal.” Tony looked hard at the floor. “I read the police report. You were in the car when it happened?” She nodded and murmured. “Yeah. We were coming to see you.” She fell quiet again for a few moments before trying again. “The cops... they tried to make it seem like she was asking to be shot. Or worse. Driving around late at night... she'd had a few drinks, too, but she was perfectly fine to drive.” Tony helpfully didn't look at her and Sophia sipped the water again as she fought back a few tears. “I just remember... looking up at your building... and thinking that it was all your fault. If you'd had your shit together, my mum would have told you about me earlier and we wouldn't have been out there that night. She'd still be alive.” Her hands were shaking.

 

Tony took the glass from her and set it down on the floor. “I know it doesn't mean much but I'm sorry. She was the first woman I truly fell in love with and a brilliant engineer. When she disappeared suddenly without an explanation... it broke my heart.” Sophia gave a weak laugh. “I didn't think you had a heart.” Tony smiled. “Don't tell anyone.” The two of them sat there silently for a little while, and then he continued. “I've done the math and figured out the reason she left MIT was you. Your grandparents were Catholic weren't they?” Sophia nodded. “Like, super Catholic. So of course when I came along and she wasn't married... they had to hide us.” Tony nodded absently, then picked up the glass. “Well. Do you feel better?” She nodded and got back into bed, and he paused awkwardly as though not quite sure what he should do. Finally he gave a weird little wave and said “Night I guess, oh hey if you have another bad dream get Jarvis to make you some warm milk and don't bother me, ok?” His smile said otherwise and she just rolled over to face the other way and ignored him. Tony closed the door and the AI turned out the light with a quiet _“Goodnight, Miss.”_

 

*

 

The bed was soft and warm, and she was being soothed by the quiet rushing sound of distant waves rolling in and out almost in time with her breathing. In short, everything was doing its best job to try and coax her back to sleep. Slowly as Sophia became more awake, she heard a distant voice raised in anger; the teenager opened an eye blearily and looked around in confusion. This was not her bedroom.

 

 _“Good morning Miss Perez.”_ The electronic voice made her open her other eye. _“I hope you had a pleasant sleep.”_ She sat up and rubbed her eyes. “Jarvis...? Who's yelling?” Jarvis cleared his digital throat. _“Ms Potts arrived home unexpectedly this morning. Needless to say, she isn't happy with Mr Stark.”_ Sophia grabbed fistfuls of the bed cover awkwardly. “Because of me?” The AI was silent for just long enough to be polite about correcting her. _“I wouldn't say so, miss. I think angry with Mr Stark is just Ms Potts' default mood. I believe Ms Potts doesn’t even know you’re here.”_ The windows lightened electronically and Sophia squinted into the sun for a moment. “Jarvis is there a way I can get out of here without either of them seeing me?” The AI affirmed. _“Of course, miss. I can guide you out. Although you would be missing out on waffles.”_ She snorted and got out of bed to pull her shoes on. “I think I can survive a morning without waffles Jarvis, especially if they've got a serious dose of family drama attached.” Under the guidance of the AI butler, the teenager was able to sneak out most of the way (taking a few seconds to admire the architecture) but she had to stop suddenly and hide as two sets of footsteps rushed by.

 

The voice that spoke was unmistakably that of Pepper Potts, and she sounded upset. “Tony why won’t you tell me what’s going on?? I got a call from the head of Stark Industries security, he said you brought in a high school student and gave her a lab to herself in the middle of the restricted research section. What the hell were you thinking??” Sophia could almost hear the shrug. “I wasn’t aware that it was in the restricted section. It was just an empty lab. Besides Pepper…” she heard Tony lean in closer and drop his voice. “The stuff she’s working on… it’s huge. What kind of an entrepreneur would I be if I didn’t give people the chance to make a lot of interesting tech? And! You’re always saying how we should hire more women.” Stark started to walk off a little and Pepper followed him. “Oh you’re not turning this around on me, Tony. Yes we should always hire more women but a teenager? She wouldn’t have qualifications!” Tony stopped walking and Sophia could just barely hear him say “She doesn’t need any. The proof is in the tech. You should see some of this stuff Pepper it’s… well… not as good as mine but it’s getting there! Another decade or so and she'll be able to give me a run for my money.” The two of them walked off continuing to argue, and Sophia bit her thumbnail indecisively. _“Miss?”_ The AI chirped quietly near her and made her jump. _“The way out is now clear. I’ve called you a taxi and charged it to Mr Stark’s expense account. Can I be of any further assistance?”_ Sophia shook her head and snuck towards the front door. “Nah but thanks Jarvis, you’ve been totally awesome.”

 

*

 

Sophia spent the rest of the day in her lab, and had built almost an entire suit by early evening. Tony had been absent, and she was wondering if that was deliberate on his part to try and keep Pepper away or if his schedule had filled up suddenly with fiance duties now she was back and he couldn’t get away. Not that she particularly cared, she added quickly as she fitted a circuit board into the suit, but her train of thought was interrupted by her overly-helpful AI companion. _“Boss… the scary lady in charge is coming. And Mr S, too. I think they’re coming to look at your lab.”_ Sophia’s stomach dropped; she had been hoping to completely avoid any kind of meeting with Pepper Potts because her reputation was super terrifying. Not to mention the fact that Sophia had no idea where she fit into the family (not that she wanted to) and she didn’t want to get attached only for the pair of them to suddenly reject her.

 

The whole thing was just too emotionally  messy, and so Sophia covered her suit with a cloth and wheeled it to a dark corner. Her AI, following her lead, hid all the schematics. “Bring back some of the non-suit related stuff, ok? Gotta make it look like I’m doing something good for the company.” The AI obeyed and a few of her less-outlandish weapons schematics and technical system diagrams appeared digitally throughout the lab. It was all Sophia could do to sit at a workbench and start randomly assembling parts into something that looked vaguely techy when she heard Tony’s voice trying to convince Pepper to change her mind.

 

Pepper was clearly not interested. “Tony, open the door.” He was clearly stalling. “She’s probably not even here, she IS in high school after all she’s probably got homework that she’s doing. At home.” Pepper’s heavy sigh was audible. “Tony I can see the lights on in the lab through the door it's not completely opaque. Open the damn door. Let’s get this over with.” Tony tried to stall a little more, and Sophia stuck her headphones into her ears as a desperate attempt to shield herself, but eventually she heard the door open. The teenager refused to turn around pretending to be listening to music and continued to build, hunching down over the workbench. She heard Stark call her name but pretended not to hear him; she really didn’t want to talk to Pepper Potts.

 

A feminine hand tapped her on the shoulder and she jumped, dropping her soldering iron onto the bench and turning around slightly. Pepper Potts gave her a polite smile and picked the soldering iron up before it burned the bench. Sophia was forced to remove her headphones and take the hot iron back with a polite murmuring, putting it back into its cradle and turning it off. “Hi Sophia.” The teenager shot Stark a venomous look as he spoke and then tried to school her face into a less nasty expression. Stark coughed and then got on with the official introductions. “Virginia Potts, may I introduce Sophia Perez?” The Stark Industries CEO held out her hand and Sophia quickly wiped her own before shaking it.

 

Stark gave a small cheeky grin as Pepper started talking. “Good to meet you Sophia… Tony tells me that you’re quite a genius.” Sophia glanced at Stark. “Did he? That’s, uh… nice of him I guess… I wouldn’t say ‘genius’, but I do have a few fun ideas.” He grinned wider at her. “She’s just being modest. I wouldn’t personally hire someone unless I thought they had some serious potential… just look at Pepper.” Pepper stared at him and subtly shook her head. She turned back to Sophia. “So you’re in high school?” Sophia nodded, and Pepper continued. “That’s nice… I’m still a little confused about why Tony’s given you your own lab… most of the time, our interns tend to hang around and help out with established projects.” Stark shrugged. “I didn’t hire her as an intern, Pepper.” Sophia felt a little thrill of nerves: it seemed like Stark was on the edge of spilling everything to Pepper. His words from the day before about a lack of subtlety suddenly came into her mind and she stood up suddenly. “Let me show you what I’m working on, Ms Potts!” She shot Stark a warning look to shut the hell up and escorted Pepper towards some of the schematics.

 

The small tour seemed to put Pepper at ease, and she started to look less tense and ask more technical questions. She seemed particularly interested in Sophia’s theories about achieving quantum computing. Eventually Stark cleared his throat. “Honey, it’s 7… do you want to go to dinner? Oh! How about we bring Sophia and you two can keep talking?” Pepper looked at Sophia and raised an eyebrow. “Do you want to come to dinner with us?” Sophia looked at her lab and considered for a second; she knew there was no food in her house, but also Stark and Pepper would probably be going somewhere expensive that would look down on the teenager in her shabby clothes. She looked down at the clothes in question and Stark flapped his hand dismissively. “Don’t worry. Come out with us.” The small, sensible voice of reason in her head told her that, if she didn’t come along, Stark would tell Pepper the truth about her and they’d probably cause a huge scene and expose her as Tony Stark’s bastard child. She didn’t think she could handle the media shitstorm, and worst of all Pepper might force him to lock her out of the lab with her new suit only half-finished… Sophia found herself nodding and then being ushered from the lab by an excited Stark.

 

*

 

The restaurant was just as fancy and overpriced as she’d expected it to be. While none of the overdressed waiters said a word, their expression conveyed their distaste about having to serve a scruffy unwashed teenager and it cut deeper than any words could. Her mother’s voice echoed in the back of her head: never be ashamed. She thrust her head high and looked at the menu, wondering if she could get away with ordering a stiff drink. Maybe if she’d just gone out with Stark, but Pepper seemed like she would be against any underage drinking. One of the overdressed waiters materialised out of the intimate gloom and looked expectantly at Stark. He ran his eyes quickly over the menu. “Uh yeah... usual suspects... what's good today?” The waiter cleared his throat. “Today's special is Trout a la Creme, prepared using the chef's own great-grandmother's recipe. We also have a very delectable gold onion and truffle soup which is my personal favourite, and delicious savory eclairs.” Tony looked at his daughter,  a mischievous twinkle in his eye that she was learning meant he was about to do something stupid. “All of that sounds real nice... but what I'd really like is a cheeseburger.” The waiter's eyes popped open. “Sir??” Tony nodded and snapped his menu shut. “Yep. That's it, I've decided. Cheeseburger, extra bacon, no pickles” he turned to address Sophia “I hate pickles, do you hate pickles?” she nodded, astonished but not really surprised at his behavior, and he started to rant at the waiter about how pickles had changed flavor in recent years. Pepper tried to argue with him and talk to the waiter simultaneously, and the pair of them just got louder and louder as they shattered the impression of intimate gloom the restaurant had tried so hard to impose.

 

The manager oozed out of a nearby shadowy corner, looking greasily dapper in a slightly-too-tight three piece tux. “Is there a problem, Mr Stark?” his attempt at an ingratiating smile was as greasy as his hair, his tiny pointed moustache looking like it would smear across his face if he touched it. Tony and Pepper both suddenly shut up and took a second. Tony was the one who spoke. “Yeah. He's refusing to take my order.” The manager turned on his hapless employee, who struggling to defend himself. “Mr Stark... he wants something that isn't on the menu...” the manager gave him a look and the waiter subsided into silence. “Of course, Mr Stark can have whatever he wants.” the manager rubbed his hands together, sliding them just a little too easily to be normal, and bowed slightly. “What can we create for you, my dear Mr Stark?” Tony made a face like a child about to throw a fit. “I want a goddamn cheeseburger, extra bacon and definitely no pickles.” The manager looked almost disappointed. “A... cheeseburger?” Tony nodded and handed him the menu. “With extra bacon and no pickles, why is that so hard to understand?” The manager apologized and ordered the waiter to get busy waiting on them before scuttling away into the gloom. Pepper just gave him a look. “Tony... you can't keep acting like this in public. It's embarrassing.” He shrugged. “I wasn't embarrassed,” he turned slightly to address Sophia ”were you embarrassed?” She just gave him a bored look. “Not really but then I wasn't really paying attention.” The idiot man gave her a pretend-hurt look and she smirked at him.

 

She felt Pepper's eyes on her, and glanced at the woman quickly before dropping both the smile and her eyes to her menu. She didn't see Pepper peer at her as though trying to get a better look through the gloom, and she didn't see Pepper look over at Tony with the same calculating look on her face. The waiter decided that was the optimal moment to insist that the ladies at the table make their orders. Pepper scanned over the menu quickly and ordered some vaguely complicated sounding dish, and in a panic Sophia ordered the fish special. The waiter took their menus and evaporated into the gloom, and the trio were left alone with some vaguely pleasant classical music tinkering in the background and the low hum of other people talking.

 

Pepper was giving Tony a look that spoke volumes, a look that he was choosing to ignore. Before she could rehash the argument about proper restaurant behavior, Tony turned to Sophia and asked her how school was going. She shrugged and toyed with her napkin. “School is unnecessary. I find the classes beneath my level and unworthy of my time. I'd rather spend my days in the lab.” She expected his grin of approval but not Pepper's frown. “You should really try to get to classes, Ms Perez. If you don't get good grades, you won't be able to go to a good college and be hired by your first choice employer.” Sophia continued to toy with the napkin. “I can't afford college, Ms Potts. My future employment will probably be in the fast food service industry.” Pepper tented her fingers. “Stark Industries offers generous scholarships to students with an exceptional level of commitment to education. Perhaps we could discuss something for you... say... sometime tomorrow? I can come to your lab or you can venture up to the scary management area.” Tony started to say something about him not being around tomorrow but Pepper shut him up and finally, reluctantly, Sophia nodded her agreement.

 

It took an awkwardly long time for their food to come, and Tony started squirming like a bratty child and craning his neck towards the kitchen at frequent intervals. Pepper just watched him with a kind of benign amusement and Sophia tooled around on her phone trying to ignore his squirming. Finally the meal arrived and they were able to eat; Sophia's fish thing wasn't unpleasant, if a little rich for her taste, and she got to enjoy the sight of their snooty judgemental waiter being appalled as Tony poured ketchup all over his gourmet burger. By the time the dessert menu came around she was having trouble keeping her eyes open, but managed to get through her chocolate mousse in one piece without spilling it down her front. Tony leaned across the table and gently asked if she wanted a lift home. Sophia nodded, too tired after an exhausting day of work be proud about it, and he handed over a card to the hovering waiter to take care of the bill.

 

*

 

Tony pulled up across the street from Sophia’s place; she was dozing peacefully on the backseat but she woke up just in time to not be drooling. She searched around a bit for her bag, and Pepper leaned forwards to look at the place. “That’s your house??” Sophia stiffened: she wasn’t in the mood to hear about how crap it was. “Yes. Thank you for dinner and the lift. I’ll see you after school tomorrow at the lab.” She was about to get out when Pepper’s hand on her wrist stopped her. “There’s someone moving around inside! I thought Tony said that you live alone…?” The teenager hesitated and looked across as her place. Someone was indeed moving around inside, and her stomach dropped. “I’d better go see who it is.” She shook off Pepper’s hand and got out of the car, hearing Pepper hiss “Tony don’t you dare let her go in there by herself!” as she did so. He turned off the engine and followed his daughter out, backing her up as they headed towards the front door.

 

The lock on the front door had been forced, and she could hear laughing deeper in the house. Her sense of ownership and the fact that some fuckwad had broken into her home overrode her fear and she stormed through the door. Sophia grabbed a baseball bat and stormed through the house. “Sophia!” She heard her father hiss her name at her but she was too deep into her rage to stop, and burst through the doors looking for the intruders.

 

She found them in her bedroom; three guys were lounging on her bed, and another of them was holding up her favourite shirt. The teenager didn’t hesitate: despite the fact that there were four of them, and they were all much bigger than her, she laid into them with her baseball bat. “You fucking cockmuchers!!” One of them, the guy holding her shirt, wasn’t quick enough to react to the wooden bat swinging towards his face and she smashed his head like she was trying for a home run. He went down in a heap, and she turned on the other guys; they’d started to react and scrambled back over her bed. One of them pulled a knife from his pocket but that didn’t stop her; rage had its claws deep, and she moved around the edge of the bed swinging the bat into any part of them she could.

 

Two of them went down under her barrage of smacks, the sound of bones breaking music to her enraged ears. The last guy standing, knife man, managed a swipe at her and made her step backwards; she stumbled over one of the bodies of his companions, and he pressed his advantage. She managed to get her arm up in front of her face just in time to take the brunt of his swipe with the blade; he cut deeply along it, and blood started pouring from the wound. She didn’t let him get a second cut in, kicking up between his legs as hard as she could and following it up with a heavy whack from the baseball bat. He dropped the knife and crumpled into a ball, and Sophia gripped her bat tighter as she stood over him.

 

The whole exchange had taken less than a minute, and in that time Tony had managed to catch up with his daughter and stood there stunned in the doorway looking into a room of carnage. He watched blood drip from Sophia’s wounded arm, and immediately hurried inside and grabbed her hand. “God look at this cut…” she glanced at it; she barely felt it. More blood pattered onto the floor as Tony fussed. “You need to go to the hospital!” She shot him a look. “For this? Are you kidding?” She gave one of the thugs another tap with the baseball bat to make sure he stayed down and then pulled from her father's grip. “I've had much worse.” The teenager led the way out into the hallway and down to the bathroom, where she jammed on the taps and ran the slash under it. Once it was clean she peered at it in the dim light of the cheapest bulb available and bit her lip; it was quite a lot deeper than it had looked initially. Tony grabbed the box of (stolen) medical supplies and rummaged through it. “That's going to need something more than a few butterfly bandages to heal properly.” He finished looking through it without finding what he was looking for. “You don't have anything for stitches?” she held her arm and shook her head. “I used all my supplies when I got hit by that shotgun blast.” Tony frowned and instead grabbed some gauze. “Well you can't stay here with a busted door lock.” He started wrapping her arm roughly: it was messy but serviceable, and he continued. “You should come stay with us for a few days til I can get it replaced.” She just nodded briefly, and then jumped almost out of her skin when someone standing in the hallway screamed. Pepper had followed them into the house.

 

She crowded into the bathroom with the other two and asked a plethora of questions, most of which Tony deflected before asking her to take Sophia back to the car. “What are you going to do?” Pepper put an arm around Sophia and Tony looked grim. “I'm going to clean up and then make a few calls.”

 

*

 

When he got back into the car minutes later he was looking more cheerful. Pepper was sitting in the back holding Sophia and raised an eyebrow at him. “Cops'll be here soon.” he started the engine and took off, glancing back in the rearview mirror at his fiancé holding onto his daughter comfortingly without seeming to notice that she was doing it. “Tony she needs the hospital.” Both of them argued with her, and in the end she gave up and allowed him to drive them up to their house. “It's not as bad as it looks. Anyway I called someone better than any hospital doctor!” Pepper gave him an exasperated look; she knew exactly who he'd called, but before she could raise yet another pointless objection they pulled up to the front door. She helped Sophia out; the teenager wasn't so much quiet because she was in pain as she was just very sleepy. Standing in the open doorway, fingers nervously pushing his glasses up his nose, was Doctor Bruce Banner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today's fish is Trout A La Creme. Enjoy your meal.


	7. Baby Bird's First Flight

Bruce Banner, PhD, peered at Sophia over the edge of his glasses. She was practically asleep on the kitchen stool as he completed his ministrations on her gash: apparently not even the excitement of meeting one of the Avengers and having surgery was enough to keep the exhausted teenager awake. He looked up at Tony, who stood nearby chewing his thumbnail nervously, and then back down at Sophia's arm. “So I take it Pepper doesn't know yet.”

 

Tony was staring at the row of neat stitches his friend has sunk into his kid's arm and didn't react for a little while. “No. And I'd like to keep it that way for a little while, just until I can figure out the best way to tell her.” Bruce tied off the last stitch and wiped the area clean before neatly bandaging it. “Well I won't tell her, because it's not really my place, but you should tell her soon... you're all done Sophia.” She opened her eyes and gave him a tired smile in thanks. Tony nodded. “You'll be in the same room as last time, think you can find it kiddo?” She favoured him with a scathing glare. “Do I look like an idiot? Anyway I can always just ask Jarvis.” The AI affirmed that she could indeed ask him, turning on a hallway light. _“This way, miss.”_ She got up and stumbled a little: Tony instinctively reached out to catch her, but she waved him off and tiredly wandered up the hall. Tony waited for the light to go off and the sound of her door closing before he turned to look at Bruce.

 

His friend was watching him with a strangely amused look on his face, and Tony questioned it. “What? What are you smirking at?” Bruce shook his head and started cleaning up the impromptu surgery area. “Just thinking that it's weird to see you act so protective. Normally you're so carefree about everything this is kind of a break in character for you.” Tony pouted. “You know I care deeply about everything I make. And she's... well... frankly Bruce she's the most beautiful thing I've ever made. And I didn't even know I'd made her.” Bruce made a face at all the paternal mushiness and took the bowl of used cotton balls to the bin. “If the others could only hear you now.” Tony stiffened defensively then sighed. “That did sound kind of sappy didn't it.” Bruce rinsed out the bowl. “Tony, honestly I'm embarrassed for you” he smiled at his friend and then added “seriously though I'm really happy for you. She seems like a sweet girl even if she does take after you.” Tony spluttered a bit but Bruce ignored him and finished washing up. “So when are you going to bring her to meet the others? I'm sure they'd love her.” Tony frowned: he hadn't even considered bringing her in to meet his Avengers teammates. “Sometime. After I tell Pepper. Probably right after so we can escape. Most importantly though I want to see how Sophia's new suit flies. I don't know who's more excited, me or her.” He turned away and offered Bruce a drink, missing his friend muttering that he was being just too cute.

 

*     *     *

 

This was going to work. She knew it. She'd been over the calculations a thousand times, checked her math with Jarvis at least a hundred and even asked her father a few times - that's how nervous she was. But there's a big difference between a good theory and a successful execution. “Are you sure that this is necessary?” Sophia peered over the edge of the platform, wind whistling through her open faceguard and chilling her nose. Tony Stark stood a few feet away looking unconcerned about the height as he busied himself with an apple. He was wearing another of those sweatpants-blazer combos, his blazer flapping open in the wind. He gestured with the half-eaten apple. “Sometimes you have to run before you can walk, baby bird.” She peered over the edge again and groaned. “But do I really need to run over the edge of the tallest building in L.A? In the middle of the night?” The man shrugged. “It's a good test, and your math is correct and your build is solid. You got this, kiddo.” He plonked down her face guard and threw the now redundant apple core over the edge. “Follow the apple, try to relax and enjoy yourself.” She followed the core down and out of sight with her eyes, and felt him push her. She overbalanced and toppled from the edge with a surprised yell. He looked over the edge after her, biting his lip as he waited for her to activate her thrusters. _“That was mean, sir”_ his AI chirped quietly from his pocket.

 

Sickening vertigo made her stomach twist and all she could think about was the ground rushing up (or was she rushing down? It wasn't really the time for language semantics). A lot of interesting alarms were going off inside her helmet, but she was only really concerned with one; Ground Proximity Warning flashed at her in big red letters. _“Boss you gotta fire thrusters!”_ Her AI sounded panicked, and Sophia briefly thought about the concept of computer mortality. Again, not really the time: she was getting mighty close to the ground. Instinctively she rolled so she was vertical and flexed her feet flat, activating the thrusters for the first time. The nearby trees shook in the wake of her thruster burn, but her descent stopped. Tony's voice boomed into her helmet. _“Whoo-ha, girl! I was almost worried you weren't going to activate thrusters and go crashing to the ground for a little while there.”_ She smiled. “What, this baby bird? Never.” Sophia glanced down and her HUD helpfully told her she was about twenty meters off the ground.

 

It also warned her that a small crowd of civilians were starting to gather nearby, and all of them had their phones out. She saluted them and curled her toes to press harder down: the suit increased thrust suddenly, and she soared up the skyscraper to the top. She released her toe pressure and used her hand thrusters to edge herself forwards towards where her father was standing. The teenager hovered, jerkily coming down in increments until she could land heavily on the concrete  next to him. She immediately knelt down and tried to work a finger under the edge of the boot. “Ahh that is so ITCHY!” she let the glove retract back into the arm and poked at the boot until the shiny black metal reluctantly gave her access and she was able to scratch the itch that had been forming.

 

Tony was on his phone. “Hey you’re already on Twitter. Pictures of you are already trending… I think they finally worked out you’re not me, too. The, uh… more form-fitting suit helps with that.” She was barely listening, concentrating on tracking down the exact itch spot, until Tony thrust his phone under her nose. “They've christened you the Iron Maiden. It’s cute.” She took the phone and straightened, watching the feed roll as new tweets were added. “Don’t these people have better things to do…” Tony shook his head. “The Superhero Watch guys are everywhere. Since the whole ‘Avengers saved the world’ thing, hero-spotting has become more popular than celebrity-spotting...” He would have continued but he was interrupted by Jarvis squawking at them. _“Sir! Miss! I track two light helicopters incoming from opposite directions, both carrying camera crews.”_ Her AI wanted to be helpful too, and chimed in _“Boss, they’re from the tabloids. Unrestricted flight path at low altitude. We’d have to go straight up to avoid them at this point.”_ Tony took his phone back. “I have to go hide and pretend I'm at home in bed when the cops call, Jarvis will run interference. You have a clearance of about 20,000 feet before you start running into some minimal problems with the suit… two helicopters shouldn't give you any trouble at all. I’ll see you at home.”

 

With that he was gone, running for the stairs, and Sophia released the catch that was holding her faceplate up. Her boot closed itself and her glove reformed around her fingers, and she flexed it a little as the servos settled and locked. Suddenly a droning sound made her look up and she was blasted full in the face by one of the choppers. Her display immediately adjusted for the brightness, but she’d already instinctively thrown up a hand to protect her eyes. A loud bullhorn attached to the front of the chopper addressed her. **“Hey you in the suit! We want to interview you!”** she took a few steps back away from the assault of light and sound, only to find there was another chopper droning up behind her. “Well shit.” She turned and ran for the edge, away from both the helicopters, pushing off at the last second and engaging her thrusters. _“Boss the choppers are trying to follow you…!”_ Her AI sounded excited, and Sophia grinned. “Let’s see them follow this.”

 

She cut a graceful arc upwards, her HUD automatically displaying flight paths for nearby planes. The teenager wove through the air around the buildings; getting from one side of the city to the other was going to be so easy now. “Are they still chasing me?” The AI was quiet for a bit. _“Seems like they were trying but you lost them, boss. The suit is too small and dark for them to follow, perfect for nights.”_ Sophia grinned; she was starting to get the hang of it. Even as she thought it, something buffeted her and she was knocked off course: the wind currents between the buildings were practically gale-force. The teenager had to spiral wildly to avoid crashing straight through a window, and then arced down to shelter from the wind tunnel. As she slowed, she heard someone crying out for help and immediately whipped her head around looking for the source.

 

It had come from the inevitable nearby dark alley, and she activated a thermal scan. At the end were two hot human shaped blobs struggling, and she edged forwards to a building and dropped down to hide and check it out. _“Gimme the bag you dumb bitch!!”_ Her directional microphone picked up the words of the bigger blob, and he finally got the bag away from the smaller blob who fell backwards with a cry. Sophia looked over the edge; the distance to the ground would shatter an average human's legs but her suit would absorb the impact.

 

The larger blob was running to the mouth of the alley, and she picked the perfect moment to leap the edge and land in front of him so hard she cracked the concrete. “Give me the bag and no one gets hurt.” The guy clutched the bag and took a few steps back from the intimidating sight in front of him. He dropped the bag and stuttered something that sounded like an apology, and she reached out to grab hold of his ear. “I'm not the one you should be apologising to you idiot!” She dragged him back towards his victim, pausing to pick up the girls bag, and made the mugger apologise and hand back the bag. It was unclear who was more stunned: the mugger or the victim. Sophia shook him by the ear. “Shame on you! If I catch you out here again pulling this kind of shit, I won't hesitate to put you in the hospital.” The Iron Maiden released him and he scurried away, and she turned to the girl who was still sitting stunned on the ground.

 

Sophia reached out a hand and helped her up. “Are you ok to get home?” the girl was shaking and Sophia patted her arm. “You're alright...” they walked slowly to the mouth of the alley, and the Iron Maiden flagged down a passing cop car. “They'll make sure you get home.” She waited until the girl threw herself into the arms of one of the cops before she crouched slightly and engages thrusters, fleeing to the sky before the cops could ask her any questions. The teenager went after the mugger, picking him up without bothering to land to drop him into the laps of the cops. The guy was so terrified of the height as they flew that he immediately confessed to a string of muggings in the area, and Sophia left him neatly tied up outside a police station with instructions to tell the nice policeman or she'd come back and drop him off the edge of a building. She then spent some time patrolling, making sure that the city was safe and no one else was getting mugged or worse.

 

It was a strangely quiet night for L.A. Sophia was sitting on the edge of a skyscraper, keeping an eye out for crime but also just kind of staring at the sky; the orange semi-darkness reminded her so much of that night. She kicked her legs and smiled. “If only you could see me now, mum.” Her radio buzzed with Stark's voice. _“Hey baby bird it’s time to come back to the nest.”_ She kicked her legs again and pouted. “Really? I was just starting to enjoy it.” She could almost hear the smile. _“Ten more minutes then return the suit, ok?”_ She agreed and slid off the edge of the building to take off, resuming her patrol around the place.

 

When she was up flying, alone with her thoughts, there was a sense of freedom; the freedom of her technology carrying her, and of not having to answer to anyone. Not teachers, not concerned parents of her classmates who knew nothing of what they were talking about, not stupid school psychologists. It was just her and the suit and the sky, and it was wonderful. Her extra ten minutes expired without further incident, and she was forced to return to Earth at the roof of the Stark Industries lab. “Good job, baby bird. The city is safe for another night.” Tony wandered out to meet her, his hands in his pockets, and Sophia pulled off her helmet and grinned at him. “That was amazing!” She ran a hand through her sweaty hair a few times, elation bubbling and mingling with a confusing array of other emotions.

 

Tony smirked and turned to walk towards the lift. “The way back to the lab should be clear. I had a very interesting face-to-face with a very nice young officer while you were out. Very polite. Amusingly just as he was asking me if I knew anything about a new suit, his radio loudly announced that you'd stopped a mugging in process. He looked very sheepish, it was great. And then as he was leaving the radio reported that you’d dropped off the mugger. He was apparently jibbering something about being thrown off the edge of a building by a metal shadow and confessing to all his numerous misdeeds.” They took the lift down, and Sophia toyed with the faceplate on her helmet as her father filled the silence with noise.

 

She flicked it up and down, not really listening, and just followed him out of the lift down the corridor and into her lab. “I'm thinking about how to tell Pepper about you.” Tony wasn’t looking at her, and so didn't see her suddenly look at him in a panic and almost drop her helmet. “You can’t!” The words slipped out before she could stop them and Tony turned to look at her with a question in his eyes. She refused to look at him and slowly put the helmet on the workbench. “If she learned about me... don't you think she'd be extremely upset? I mean it's one thing to have a history of being a playboy but I don’t think she’d be too pleased to find out you have a teenaged daughter.” She grabbed a nearby socket wrench and started busying herself with her helmet to hide her shaking hands.

 

A voice from the shadows by the door made them both jump and turn. “I think you're both severely underestimating my ability to see what's happening right in front of me.” Pepper Potts, possibly the future Mrs Stark, came across the floor and planted her hands on her hips with a barely concealed smirk. “Pepper...” Tony said it softly and was ignored as his fiance focused on the teenager. “You two have no idea what subtle means, do you? Tony you should have told me as soon as you found out. I don't blame you Sophia at all, he's literally the worst about keeping secrets. He's either far too eager to reveal it or he stubbornly refuses to even mention related topics, there is no middle ground.” She rested a cool hand on the teens' shoulder and squeezed slightly and Sophia thought that nothing could be as comforting.

 

“When did you know?” Tony asked and Pepper answered. “As soon as I saw her, Tony. You do have a pretty distinctive look and she looks like a much prettier version of you.” The woman gazed down at the teenager. “Also you're both unbelievably mouthy and sarcastic, so that was kind of a dead giveaway.” Sophia met her gaze. “Why didn't you say something?” Her words were quiet and Pepper smiled at her. “Because it was important to both of you.” That was enough to make tears well up in the teenager’s eyes: why was Pepper so nice? She’d been expecting the same rejection she’d had her entire life, had mentally prepared for it. But this unquestioning acceptance was something she’d never had, and it broke down her defences. Pepper didn't hesitate; she just hugged Sophia.

 

She smelled like soap and clean clothes with faint traces of some expensive perfume. It was pleasant. A second, more masculine scent wrapped around them both, and Pepper glared at Tony as he joined their hug. “Why? Why do you always have to make things weird?” He let them go and mumbled something about her being right and it not being the right moment. Pepper let Sophia go and turned to tell him off more and the teen was able to wipe her eyes discreetly.

 

The two of them broke off arguing when she piped up. “If you know... who else knows?” The adults looked at each other and both hurried to reassure her that they'd be the only ones. “And the security team, of course. We'll have to get you a bodyguard.” Pepper seemed to think this was reasonable but Sophia scowled. “Why don't you just hold a press conference and announce it?” She turned to Pepper. “He's already tried to give me a car!” Pepper glanced at Tony, who looked sheepish. “She didn’t like it because it had a custom plate professing that she was Stark junior.” The mention of it made Sophia cover her eyes in exasperation. “I'm trying to hide, Tony. Not announce my existence to the whole goddamn universe!” Tony grinned at her. “We’ll see.”

 

 


	8. A Long Day at School

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many exhausted thanks to my beta readers Erikai Andraste and tehhonya for having to deal with me.

Sophia couldn’t decide what was more annoying; the media stalkers that tried their hardest to get any information on the mysterious pilot of the jokingly-christened Iron Maiden, or her dad trying and failing to be secretive about her existence. She was currently elbow-deep in grease and grime in a black tank-top, burns on her jeans from where she’d wiped the solder and a smear of the bright green fluid that filled her suit’s custom servos across her nose, and as happy as she’d ever been. She was trying her hardest to ignore her dad, who was hovering around her talking on his phone to someone in the LAPD about how he was sure that they’d track down the elusive Iron Maiden soon and that he had things to do, and that they should stop calling every time there was a sniff of her (even though it was actually Tony who’d called the detective).

 

He finally hung up and grinned expectantly at Sophia, who just raised an eyebrow at him before diving back into her work. “Tony!” Pepper let herself into the lab; she’d insisted that she be given a copy of the keycard so she could keep an eye on her partner’s daughter while he was out doing business things, and the only one unhappy about it was Tony. “Uh oh…” Tony whirled to face his fiance with his customary grin. “Are you seriously letting her work on her suit right now? She’s meant to be at school! Her economics teacher just called the office looking for her!” Sophia wiped the soldering iron on her jeans and mirrored Tony’s grin as closely as she could; she’d discovered that doing that threw Pepper off her track of thought, and had tucked the knowledge away for emergencies. “I never thought school was particularly important anyway.” Pepper gaped at her but quickly reordered her thoughts.

 

She looked through the papers in her hands and went after Tony again, and Sophia was able to go back to working on the suit. A thread of guilt gnawed at her; after all, her mother had used all her bargaining power to get Sophia into that stupid school after she’d begged. Having the so-called genius daughter of Angelica Perez, an MIT robotics alumnus (albeit a non-industry employed one), at the school had been a big factor in getting the scholarship and yet Sophia hadn’t taken a single robotics class after their run-in with the gangbanger. She bit her lip and tried to steady her hand as her dad and Pepper argued playfully behind her; it wasn’t that she thought her mother would have been angry that she chose vengeance over education, but the ‘justice’ thing would have been a lot easier if she didn’t have to spend eight hours in what was essentially prison… even if she had promised...

 

Her hand slipped and she soldered the wrong part of the board she was working on. “Fucking hell!” she wiped the iron on her jeans again to get rid of the excess solder and realised that the adults behind her had fallen silent. Sophia didn’t turn around; she just went back and managed to draw the solder away to fix the mistake. Tony appeared over her shoulder and ran an experienced eye over her work. “The joins are looking good, kiddo.” She holstered the iron in its holder on the bench and glanced at him. “Thanks.” She sighed. “Pepper’s right I should be at school.” She got up and flicked the switch to turn her soldering iron off, and grabbed the shirt she’d been wearing before she got into the dirty work to pull it back on. “At least wash your hands first?” Pepper took the shirt from her and watched with amusement as the teenager grudgingly went to wash off the grease.

 

She came back cleaner, but the smear of drying green servo goo was still across her face and Pepper grabbed a facial wipe from the packet in her pocket and wiped it off for her before handing the teenager her clothing. “Thanks Pepper.” Sophia didn’t look at her, but Pepper threw a smile her way anyway. “I can have one of the drivers bring a car around to drop you off, you shouldn’t be too late and you can always blame Tony.” That one made Tony make little offended noises but Sophia smiled. Tony recovered enough to pull on his sportcoat and jingle a set of car keys at his daughter. “Tell you what, I’ll drive you so you can make it this century. I actually go through yellow lights.” Before Pepper could object he was out the door, throwing “love you Pepper!” over his shoulder. Sophia grabbed her school bag and gave an apologetic shrug to Pepper, who just sighed and wished her a good day at school, following it up with a reminder to study hard.

 

Tony was leaning against some ridiculous bright yellow sportscar drinking a takeaway coffee that had mysteriously appeared on his person in the time it took for him to get between her lab and his car. Sophia, busy checking all her books were in her bag, just ignored him and walked towards the passenger side of the car. He hopped into the driver’s side and waited for her to get settled and buckled in before he touched the start button and put his foot down before ramming the car into gear and taking off through the compound at a startling pace.

 

Despite being (mostly) in control of a very expensive piece of machinery, Tony was comfortable with ignoring most of the driving process in favour of chatting to Sophia. “So I heard you don’t have your license?” She thumbed over her books and gripped the handle on the door tightly. “No. It’s not like I was going to ever be able to afford a car before you started blackmailing me into hanging out with you.” Tony grinned. “We’ll have to rectify that at some point, how am I supposed to pretend to get mad at you for borrowing my cars without my permission if you don’t know even how to drive them?” She couldn’t think of a suitable rebuttal and instead shrugged and stayed quiet.

 

Tony drove for a little while, going through a few yellow lights until the traffic system finally caught up with them and they were caught at a red, and he had to slam on the brakes and grip the steering wheel in frustration. “I should be allowed to run these, we have important places to be.” Sophia snorted and checked her Twitter feed. She was caught off guard when her dad started speaking again. “So. About college.” The teenager slowly rose her head to stare at him with incredulity. “College? What?” Tony shrugged. “I know you think school is a waste of time but believe me, college is nothing like high school. I was able to finish high school in like two years, it shouldn’t really be a problem for you. College is more… free. You can get away with doing just about anything.” He concentrated on the red light for a few more seconds. “The only problem is… you gotta do the work at high school to earn that freedom. A lot of places would be really interested in you if you got your grades back up, even without knowing you’re my kid. MIT, for example.”

 

The light turned green and they were able to continue on their way, but Sophia was bewildered; what had prompted this very out-of-character fatherly talk about her future? He knew she wasn’t thinking beyond getting justice, why was he trying to make her? He glanced at her and caught her glaring at him, and looked back at the road. “Don’t get pissy at me. This is the kind of shit fathers pull, apparently. Also Pepper made me do it.” Sophia huffed; he was entirely too comfortable blaming his fiance for his responsible moments and she was starting to disbelieve that every single time was Pepper.

 

They were a street or so away from her school by this time, and she forced him to pull over. “I can’t be turning up late to school in a bright yellow sportscar driven by someone who’s meant to be my boss. Remember that thing I said before about people thinking you’re my sugar daddy?” He looked sulky but agreed and let her out. “I’ll come get you from this same spot after school so you can get right back to work on the suit, ok?” She snorted. “You’re going to be waiting a while, then. Today’s my after school remedial maths class.” Tony’s jaw dropped and he was actually stunned into physical silence for probably the first time ever.

 

Eventually his outrage subsided enough for him to talk. “Sophia! You… remedial math class?? Fucking seriously?” She shrugged, suddenly embarrassed by his reaction. Tony stuck on the parking brake and turned off the engine so he could sit up in his seat and grab her arm. “You want these moronic teachers to believe that you’re an idiot? That you’re worse than them? I can’t believe that your pride would let you do that… what would your mother think?” He let her go and shook his head, pushing the button for the engine to turn the car back on and releasing the parking brake. “I thought you were better than them, Sophia.” He drove off and Sophia barely managed to resist the urge to throw her bag at his car and scream at him.

 

*

 

Walking the rest of the way to school didn’t take her long but she was struggling with her emotions the whole way. While he was right, she was indeed better than the rut she’d let herself get stuck into, her teenage rage seethed at Tony’s words. How dare he act so disappointed? And how _dare_ he throw her mother in her face like that? He knew why she had to keep her head down! There were too many dots that would be easy to connect between them if she started flashing her real intelligence around. People would connect her to Stark, and the Iron Maiden, and her cover would be blown and she’d probably be arrested in the interests of ‘national security’. Her irritating internal voice of reason, the one that sounded too much like her mother, told her that he was probably right and she was better than remedial maths, far better, and it would only be a good thing to prove it to everyone else. She’d also be making her mother proud. Sophia childishly ignored the voice and walked through the doors into school.

 

She was placing books into her locker and trying to calm down, when her remedial maths teacher Ms Harris approached her. “Just getting in?” The woman smiled, but it was cold and didn’t reach her eyes. Sophia ignored her, consulting the timetable attached to her locker door; with some luck she was only going to be a few minutes late to history. “Miss Perez.” The maths teacher was still standing there. “I still haven’t received any of your homework for this semester. I’ve taken the liberty of arranging a small session with the vice principal this evening to discuss it, after our class together.” Sophia almost dropped her books; the vice principal was known to be a pedantic piece of shit who was known to go overboard with punishing students for the mildest of things.

 

Sophia took a tighter hold of her history books and closed her locked. “I don’t think that would be very productive. See, I’m currently working at Stark Industries, and I’ve got a project deadline…” her maths teacher cut her off. “Oh yes, we’ve all heard about that. I’m not quite sure what someone failing at remedial maths could offer Mr Stark.” She didn’t say it, but the implications of shenanigans were clear and Sophia felt that good old rage spark up again. Ms Harris turned on her heel and threw “this evening, Sophia, the vice principal’s office” over her shoulder, leaving the teenager to seethe quietly beside her locker and eventually move like a robot towards her history classroom.

 

*

 

Despite her mental pleas for it not to, the rest of the school day flew by and she was standing by the window in the classroom they used for remedial maths watching everyone else leave with her phone in her hand; she’d just had to tell Stark that she was going to be even later and that he shouldn’t worry and to go home to Pepper. “Sophia! Come and sit down!” she turned at Harris’ voice and did as instructed, taking her time to pick her way through to the seat that had become hers. Her phone vibrated in her hand and she glanced at it; Stark was concerned and said he’d wait for her til whenever. Great, just what she needed; Stark in super protective parent mode. “Sophia… phones away now.” Harris was really starting to get on her nerves and she shoved it in her pocket with an angry sigh. Under instruction she took out her books and stared at the textbook; they’d been working on algebraic formula and conversions, and they were so simple they made her brain hurt. Without really thinking about it she scribbled the answers (and then some) and went back to daydreaming as the teacher tried to engage the small number of students in her care.

 

The lesson flew by like the rest of the day, and in the last twenty minutes Harris took up the work they’d done to check it over with them before they could leave. She always left Sophia til last, since the teenager never even tried to engage in the class and always handed in a blank piece of paper, and it was just easier that way. There was no one else in the classroom when she took up Sophia’s paper and glanced at it. “Oh I see you actually tried… today…” she checked the formula and her mouth dropped open, and then rushed to her desk to check the answers. Sophia just looked at her phone; her dad was right, she was beyond these people if such simple formula could amaze them. She was so engrossed with Twitter that she didn’t see Harris staring at her in open shock for a few minutes, but Sophia met her eyes and then quickly dropped them again to the screen. “What? It’s not like it’s hard.” She scratched her head uncomfortably and then jumped when her teacher dropped the textbook on her desk.

 

Harris leaned forwards. “So you’re saying… you get this?” She shoved a whiteboard marker at Sophia and headed for the board and proceeded to draw up a bunch of different formula. Sophia sighed heavily and toyed with the marker; what was with teachers and constantly wanting to test people? She followed Harris up and proceeded to solve any and all the equations her teacher could throw at her.

 

The two of them were standing there staring at the board covered in two different colours of markers half an hour later; Sophia had solved everything without batting an eyelid. “But… why didn’t you try this hard before?” The teenager snorted. “Because who really cares?” Harris was prevented from replying by the vice principal barrelling into the room, followed closely by an angry-looking Tony Stark. “Harris! Perez! You’re late for our meeting!” The annoying little man focused sharply on Sophia. “This man claims he’s got an interest in your schooling. I have no idea how he got in here but he accosted me in the hallway and asked me what I’d done with you!” Sophia couldn’t resist a facepalm and muttered something about him being her boss.

 

“That’s right! I’m her… boss! And I have a vested interest!” Tony drew himself up and gave his best cocky boardroom glare at the vice principal, who took a step back and cleared his throat. “I suppose in the absence of an actual parent… you’ll do… come to my office!” he stormed out ignoring Stark questioning what he meant by “you’ll do”, and Sophia dropped the marker on Harris’ desk to go and gather her books. Harris scurried out of the room after the vice principal, but Stark didn’t follow her; he was busy looking over the equations that had so engrossed the two women with a critical eye. “Nice, kiddo. I’m glad to see you’re finally using some of your potential. Angelica would be proud.” Sophia made a face at him and quickly dropped her voice. “What the hell are you doing here?” He shrugged. “I was worried about you after your text. And I see I was right to be… what the hell does he mean ‘in the absence of an actual parent’? Am I not parenty enough?” She sighed. “You’re supposed to be pretending not to be my father in public, remember?” The two of them left the classroom and Sophia stopped off briefly to drop her books into her locker and grab her bag seething the whole way.

 

The vice principal shut the door behind them when they finally entered, and trotted across the floor to sit at his overly large desk. Harris was already sitting in one of the three chairs in front of the desk looking a little put-out, and Sophia took the middle chair. Tony took the other end chair, and made a show of trying not to look bored. Vice principal Murphy Smith peered over his glasses in what he clearly thought was a fatherly, supportive way but just made him look stupid. “Miss Perez… Ms Harris here tells me that you’re refusing to hand in your homework for her class.” Sophia shrugged. “Can’t hand in what you don’t do.” If she’d been a little braver, she’d have gone for a high-five with her dad.

 

Smith’s face hardened. “Your attitude is disrespectful. I have half a mind to recommend to the board that they rescind your scholarship and kick you to the curb you arrogant little girl.” She shrugged again, choosing not to say anything. She could almost feel the waves of anger coming off Stark next to her; his leg was jiggling and she was pretty sure he was literally biting his tongue. On her other side, Ms Harris cleared her throat. “Vice Principal… do you really think that would be the best course of action?  Miss Perez has proved tonight that she’s more than capable of doing the classwork, she simply lacks the desire to apply herself.” Smith’s face snapped to her and his eyes narrowed. “You’re defending her? After all the lip she’s given you?” Sophia slumped in her chair and disinterestedly fixed her eyes on a spot on the floor; expulsion meant that she would be able to achieve her personal goals a lot sooner, and it was looking like he’d made up his mind so why fight it? That thread of guilt about wasting her mother’s sacrifices twisted and she bit her lip to hold back hot tears. Angelica would have been proud of her no matter what she did, right?

 

Stark surprised all of them by speaking up. “I’m sure we can work out some kind of arrangement.” She glanced at him, trying to catch his eye. He turned to look at her and his face softened from boardroom mask into that same worried smile he’d worn when he’d tried his best to comfort her after her nightmare. “After all… school is important.” Smith leaned back in his chair, seemingly thinking it over.

 

Before anyone else could act like a moron and try to save her academic career, Sophia stifled a groan, leaned forwards and focused as hard as she could on Smith. “If I agree to lift my grades, you and the rest of the faculty have to leave me alone. No more of this threatening to kick me out shit.” Smith spluttered a little at her language but Tony jumped on him. “And if you do kick her out despite her promise to do better, I will bring the full force of Stark Industries legal department down on your weirdly shaped head, Mr Smith.” Tony smirked at him, and Smith went a funny shade of grey and made a gagging noise. He eventually grudgingly agreed, after he managed to get his voice back and held his hand out for Stark to shake. “Oh no. I’m not the one you should be making the agreement with. I’m just here making sure Sophia’s got a little extra weight behind her negotiations.” Smith grimaced and swung his hand out to Sophia, who considered him with a cool gaze for a moment before she shook it once and then wiped her hand on her pants.

 

Tony stood and checked his watch. “Alright. That was a waste of time. Let’s go, Sophia. You’ve got that project deadline to meet.” She grabbed her bag from under her chair and nodded to Ms Harris; the woman had a strange evaluating look on her face, and Sophia wondered if she was doing the same mental comparison that Pepper had done to connect the dots - not that anyone would listen to her if she tried to speak up about it. Tony held the door for her and she gave Smith a cheeky little wave, resisting the urge to poke her tongue out at him as the two of them left and headed outside to the parking lot.

 

There were three cars, and Tony’s bright yellow foreign sportscar stood out next to the two teachers’ dull grey and silver numbers. “I think you handled that pretty well, kiddo.” He unlocked the car and hopped in, and Sophia followed silently. Staying at that stupid school wasn’t exactly what she wanted but she just couldn’t take the feeling of her dad being disappointed in her. “Burgers, then suit work? I had some ideas while I was waiting for you.” Tony backed out of the spot and headed for the parking lot exit.

 

Despite the emotional rollercoaster of the day Sophia managed a smile. “Yeah.” Her hand found its way to the slowly-healing bullet wound in her chest, touching at the scar, and she turned to her dad. “Do you think there’s a chance we can test the suit’s ballistic properties? I’m curious how much gunfire it can take.” Tony rubbed a thumb over his cheek. “From what I remember they can take quite a bit of punishment, but we can certainly test it. It might be a good idea actually since your suit is lighter on the metal.” He headed for the nearest drive-through. “Not that I think you should be throwing yourself into combat or anything. But just in case.” Sophia snorted. “Of course.” Tony turned his face away to look at the menu but she could see his grin reflected in the window, and it made her smile.

 

He took a long time choosing which burger, and then even longer trying to decide if he should get Pepper anything. Sophia facepalmed and murmured that maybe they should go in, instead of clogging up the drive-through. “That’s a great idea!” He reverse and parked by the door, and Sophia was left wondering exactly how much of her DNA was his as he skulked into the fast food restaurant like a hungry tiger.

 

*

 

The employee cafeteria was dark and empty when she let herself into it, the lights flicking on to reveal a table. Tony was fetching Pepper, who’d holed up in her office with her paperwork, and had made the foolish mistake of leaving Sophia alone with the food. As she consumed a handful of fries, she pondered her life. There was no denying that it was better now she wasn’t holed up alone in her garage trying desperately to cobble car parts together into a working suit. Thinking about the lab made her then think about Stark; she supposed he wasn’t such a bad guy, really. He acted like a moron as defence mechanism but inside he was razor sharp and he saw everything. She could relate.

 

He wandered into the room. “I found Pepper! She’s on her way.” He joined her at the table and took some fries, focusing on her with a laser-like gaze. “You look puzzled.” Sophia took a bite and chewed to give herself some time to put her thoughts into actual words. “I was just thinking… I think I was kinda wrong about you. I always thought you were a complete bastard, since you never came looking for us.” He shrugged and dragged some more fries through sauce. “I never came looking because I didn’t know you existed. If I did… hoo boy. You think the ferrari was an over-the-top present - which, by the way, I’m just keeping for you crazy license plate and all. We’re talking about diamond ponies.” Too emotionally drained to do anything except give a tired laugh, Sophia took another bite of her burger.

 

Pepper wandered across the floor looking at a tablet, and sat across from her next to Tony but looked up at Sophia. “So how was school… Tony said you were taking some kind of extra class.” Sophia nodded, mouth full of burger again, and let her dad cover for her by gently mocking her for continuing to work during dinner and trying to steal her tablet. Pepper didn’t seem to realise that Sophia hadn’t answered her question. She finished her burger and wiped her mouth, looking at her Twitter feed. “I’m gonna go to the lab and grab a few things… can I get a lift home?” The adults paused their play fight and Tony nodded and shrugged. “Of course, you don’t even have to ask.” Pepper frowned. “We still haven’t replaced the broken windows… are you sure you don’t want to spend the night at our place again?” Sophia paused and dropped her paper napkin onto the burger wrapper. “I guess I can’t if the place isn’t secure. I just didn’t want to impose on you again…” Pepper gestured dismissively with her hand as Tony scoffed. “You’re not imposing! It’s just as easy for Jarvis to cook for three.” With a nod, Sophia hurried off to the lab to grab a few things to work on. The girl was very much looking forward to going out in the suit again, but some of her equipment needed a little light tweaking. It was going to be ready by the weekend, and she was going to take out the cocksucker who killed her mother once and for all.


	9. Like A Ninja

Patrolling had quickly become her favourite thing to do. Sophia was able to escape the world, escape any expectations that people had of her, and just work towards her mission. Over the last two weeks the Iron Maiden had made a name for herself cleaning up pockets of entrenched gang violence. Using the element of surprise, threats, and intimidation to shut down their operations - and when that failed, some good old-fashioned face mashing - to get the job done. The police seemed grudgingly respectful. They’d stopped actively hunting her and instead gleefully arrested people left right and center. The opposite could be said of the media: with every arrest connected to her they worked themselves up into more of a frenzy. News sites were paying top dollar for any decent pictures of her, and entire blogs had been devoted to her. The Iron Maiden had become so popular that there were even dirty drawings.

 

She’d been upgrading her suit constantly over the last fortnight, too; it was now at least 40% (or as Tony insisted, 40.02%) more efficient on power use and rising, and she was able to give bigger energy blasts. Thanks to her dad she’d been able to be outfitted with non-lethal riot gear (Sophia had argued for some kind of awesome sword, but Tony had been adamant about not killing people). Her suit contained an array of incapacitating pepper spray, tasers and a so-far empty tank that she was working hard on filling with an original chemical formula. She had plans to include a heavy weapon, too, but those were secret.

 

She was currently lazily patrolling around the top of a skyscraper; with the suit she was able to see a side of the city no one else got to see. Her AI, jokingly named Athena after the Greek goddess of wisdom for being a little know-it-all, was scanning the local area for traces of a nest of gang members. Although she'd been able to clean up pockets here and there and people were calling her a hero, she'd been unable to find her main target and it was frustrating. After their last confrontation he'd gone underground, pulling the strings of his empire from a distance. So the Iron Maiden had done the only thing she could do to draw him out. _“Boss... I'm picking up some network traffic from one of the new known phone numbers of the 1000 Eyes. It's a mass message, containing the same data.”_  Sophia grinned: topping off a perfect night with some revenge violence was her kind of evening. “Track the source down and decode the message. I think I need to crash that party.”

 

Athena got to work and Sophia maintained a holding pattern as it worked, trying not to fly out of range of the message. _“The message says that it's time to put the beat down on someone their leader suspects is skimming cash. Someone called Chris Hewitt”_ Sophia nearly fell out of the sky. “Chewie??” Everyone at school knew who Chewie was, one of those big football types that was mostly harmless unless you were a football or a really big sandwich. “I knew he was going through some stuff... but gang stuff? He's not the type.” Her AI was silent for a bit and then noncommittally mentioned that there were probably other people in the world called Chris Hewitt. “Good point. What's their location?” A suggested flight path appeared on her HUD and she peeled off from her holding pattern to fly along it wondering about coincidences.

 

Instead of the cliché dark alleyway she'd come to expect from the gang, she was led to an even more cliché dark abandoned warehouse by the docks. Her thermal scan told her there were lots of hot human-sized blobs visible inside, and she muttered something about a lack of originality as she scanned back and forth. _“Be careful boss, this is probably a trap.”_ Sophia lifted her faceplate: even with the helmet bristling with sensors she trusted her eyes more in this kind of situation. “No shit, Sherlock. But I doubt it's a trap for me.” The warehouse had lots of possible ways in, some guarded some unguarded. “Looks like the best bet is that window on the third floor.” She flipped down the faceplate and rescanned the building, this time focusing on the third floor. _“Only a couple of guys up there boss. Lots of outbound signal up there though, I think someone's on an important phone call._ _”_ Sophia smiled. “Good.”

 

Getting in was surprisingly easy. The window she'd selected wasn't even locked and she was able to stealthily boost high over the gap between buildings to it and shut off her very visible bright thrusters to fall the last few feet and catch onto the edge of it. She couldn’t resist murmuring “oh I'm a motherfucking ninja...” as she slid the window open and hauled herself up through it. The corridor beyond was poorly lit and empty but she did another scan anyway, sinking into the shadows. “Activate stealth mode.” Stealth mode was a shiny new feature: it had only been successfully tested once, the day before. The much bigger drain on the power from the stealth camouflage meant that the Iron Maiden suit was unable to sustain thrusters or shoot energy blasts, but she'd felt that it was worthwhile putting it into the suit as it was since she wasn't planning on using either of them while being stealthy. _“Activating now.”_ The black suit disappeared with a shimmer like a summer heatwave and Sophia was able to emerge confidently from the shadows.

 

The floor was indeed empty of people: there was one guy guarding the flight of stairs down and he was disinterestedly looking at Pinterest on his phone with his gun resting on his shoulder. This floor had obviously been the top executive offices before the warehouse had been abandoned, as every empty room she passed had various impressive titles painted on them. There were lights on in the old boardroom, and she snuck up on the half-rotten door to scan the room. The teenager froze when her helmet's directional microphone picked up a loud angry voice inside. “It's not my fucking fault, ok?” She scanned inside: it was that big muscled murderer chatting away on his phone.

 

Her fists clenched involuntarily. She prepared to smash through the door and finish it once and for all when his words stopped her. “I don't fucking know who she is! She's taking out my dealers at faster than I can replace them and we're losing money! Maybe if you got me some of that sweet tech you got rattling around I'd be able to do something about her!” He listened to the reply and Sophia chewed her lip, unable to decide what to do. “Athena, I need to own that phone.” Her AI gleefully fumbled around, and after a few seconds she got both sides of the conversation. _“_ _-know very well that I can't afford to have my name linked to you and your gang, and giving you what you're asking for is the perfect way to fuck us both over.”_ Sophia listened hard: the voice was young and male, but otherwise unrecognizable. “Then how the shit do you expect me to deal with her?” The other voice laughed, a cultured trilling that didn't make Sophia believe he was actually amused. _“Oh my dear boy... the old fashioned way of course. You have access to my store of explosives, lure her somewhere and blow her up! The main thing is to get the product moving again. I'm counting on you Elijah. My project can't stop now, not when I'm so close.”_ Sophia frowned: this was getting stranger by the second.

 

She was so distracted by the conversation in the room that she didn't hear the guard from the stairs coming up behind her and he accidentally collided heavily with the still-invisible suit. The resulting clang as they fell heavily together echoed down the corridor and she immediately twisted to kick the guard's gun out of his hand and wrap her metal-encased calves around his throat. He clawed and flailed at her legs, bruising his hands as they impacted with the metal suit, and she winced as the more powerful grown man managed to kick her in her still-healing chest wound with another loud clang. “What's going on out there??” The muscly leader of the gang was heading for the door, and Sophia squeezed her legs tighter trying to knock the guard out and extricate herself so she could deal with the leader. Finally his body went limp and she tried to shift it but the dead weight of the unconscious man proved nearly impossible to shift while she was losing 70% of her power to stealth mode. “Deactivate stealth!” The suit shimmered back into view, the strength modifiers were able to kick in as power came flooding back and she was able to throw her opponent off her. It was another matter entirely to get out of the view of the door and she barely managed to right herself in time for it to open, let alone get away.

 

The man who'd gunned down her mother, the reason for all her heartbreak and anger, opened the rotting door. He had a modified shotgun in his hands and he was wearing a Bluetooth headset, and he froze when he saw her standing over his unconscious guard. “Iron Maiden!!” He voice was a roar, and she saw his large finger clench around the trigger just in time for her to dive out of the way of the blast. He went after her again, firing round after round at her as they charged down the corridor in the world's most dangerous game of chase - the whole thing would have been hilarious if she hasn't been in mortal peril.

 

He chased her around a circuit of the floor a few times, getting off a few more shots: because of both the suit and adrenaline she was faster than him, but increasing the gap meant he was more likely to be able to get her with the wider spread of shotgun pellets. She felt a few pellets ping off her back and thanked her lucky stars that they'd bothered to reinforce the plates and tried to remember to thank Tony for insisting that they did. Their strange deadly Benny Hill chase suddenly ended when the meathead ran out of cartridges and had to stop and scramble for another gun. Sophia kept running, slipping around the corner and into a disused room full of broken furniture and graffiti. “Activate stealth mode…” the suit shimmered a little, then a small alarm went off in the corner of her view. _“No can do, Boss. It’s on cooldown.”_ She swore, and then sank behind a bunch of desks to try and hide the old-fashioned way.

 

The muzzle of the gun that the guard on the stairs had been carrying peeked into the room: musclehead had grabbed that as a replacement for his shotgun. “I know you're in here bitch... did you really think that you'd be able to get away with taking out my people like this? Do you know how much fucking money you lost me?” She slipped across the floor to a different corner, trying to work out the best angle of attack. “I thought I was costing your boss money?” The gun fired but it was a guessed shot in the dark and hit the opposite wall, the spray of bullets sinking through the crumbling plaster. The noise made her jump but she tried to stay still. “He's Not my boss! We have a mutual partnership! He supplies my product and weapons and I give him the people he needs to do his experiments! He couldn't do shit without me!” She sank further down into the shadow and steeled herself to peek around the corner of the pile of junk that was hiding her.

 

The meathead had entered the room at this point and was searching for her behind the piles. She had two choices and she knew it: ambush or be ambushed. She slid along the floor while his back was turned and breathlessly put a foot against the towering pile of junk between them. She braced her back against the wall and pushed: the powerful servos in her legs engaged and shoved the pile over towards the meathead. He went down under a pile of splintery chairs and other furniture with a yelp and she leapt from her spot over the unmoved base desk onto him. She drew back her left arm, her fingers curled into a fist as she prepared to smash his face to tiny pieces, and her other hand pinning him to the floor. “You killed my mother. This is for her.” her voice was quiet and angry, but looking at the killer's face didn't make her blindly rage-filled like she'd always thought it would when she got to this point. He just looked pathetic; his head was bleeding from a few cuts and his eyes were unfocused from hitting the floor hard. Her fist lowered of it's own accord. “Fuck.” He struggled to focus at her voice and he looked like he was going to try and throw her off, but gave up and just lay there under the dusty fallen junk.

 

She sat back and stared. Why couldn't she finish him? She'd been all set to do so for as long as she'd been on this quest but now... he was a despicable gutless killer, someone who'd ruined thousands of lives - including hers. She raised her fist again and felt tears well up in her eyes. “Why??” She took him by his shirt throat and shook him hard. “Why can't I just kill you??” As she shook him his Bluetooth headset clattered to the floor and she noticed that the small icon of the call she'd been listening in on was still there in the corner of her HUD. Someone was still on the line listening and waiting.

 

As though they'd realized she had finally noticed them, the voice spoke directly to her. _“Iron Maiden I assume.”_ She gasped. _“You're doing me a favor you know. Poor Elijah was in too deep. He was about four hours away from a very special forced retirement.”_ She said nothing and the voice continued. _“Tell you what. If you're too squeamish to kill him, feel free to toss him to the cops. I'm done picking up after him and his ridiculous fantasy of being a drug lord, he can rot in jail.”_ She bit her lip. _“I feel like I shouldn't tell you but what the hell, you seem like a nice girl even if you have been taking out my people... I've been the one protecting him all this time. Every time he got away, every dropped charge, every cop that looked the other way... me. And I'm sick of expending resources on him. So you be a good girl and finish your little quest for justice and deal with him for me. Remember, I don't care if you go to the cops or murder him. Your choice.”_ The icon disappeared from her view and the disconnected tone played in her headset as the soundtrack to her confusion. “Fucking what??” The night was getting way too confusing. She needed advice.

 

*

 

Tony was surprised but very pleased when Jarvis interrupted his cup of coffee to tell him who was calling at such a late hour. “Hey kiddo, what's wrong? Did your suit sputter out in stealth mode because of the power drain? I told you it was a bad idea to put it in without testing it further...” his daughter sounded distressed. _“No... look... I found him. I found the guy who killed my mum.”_ Tony froze, and looked down at the floor for a second evaluating his options. His voice came out a lot more subdued. “Do you need me to help hide the body?” He could hear her pacing: it sounded like she was walking over dry sticks. _“No... maybe... I don't fucking know! I want to kill him, but... at the same time... there's something really weird going on here that I don't understand. He was working for someone. But also I don't care because he killed her on his own.”_ Tony raised an eyebrow. “Working for someone?” She sighed. _“Yeah I didn't get his name when he called but it sounds like he's taking people for experiments or something.”_ Tony frowned but she continued. _“What do you think I should do?_ _”_ He rolled the words over in his mind a little bit, a tiny bit smug that she'd actually called to ask him his opinion, but mostly worried and empathetic towards her situation.

 

He finally sighed to break the silence. “What it really comes down to, Sophia, is what kind of hero you want to be. You could mash his face to pulp or drop him to the pavement from 10,000 feet up and completely ignore the breadcrumbs his boss is putting down for you… I don’t believe anyone would judge you for it, or think you weren’t completely right to do so especially me. However…” he rubbed his head and then leaned on a nearby counter almost conspiratorially. “If you wanted to be something more, if you wanted to be the kind of hero that can do the things other people can only daydream about… then toss him to the cops and come home for the night and we can have a talk in the morning.” There was silence on the other end for a long time, and he had to check to make sure he hadn’t accidentally disconnected the call. The voice that came through when Sophia finally spoke again sounded so very young. _“Ok... I'll come home.”_ He smiled at her - not that she could see it - and added “don't forget to explain the situation nicely to the cops.” He heard her snort derisively. _“They'll probably just try to shoot me. I'll be home soon.”_ She hung up and he sighed heavily; his daughter was maturing as a hero and it made him happy.

 

A deep male voice behind him made him turn and frown. “That's a heavy sigh for you, Tony. A lot on your mind?” Nick Fury, director of Shield, sat comfortably sprawled on the expansive couch behind the ex-hero, his one good eye gleaming in the semi-darkness. “Man you gotta learn to knock when you break and enter.” Fury said nothing, as immovable as stone. Tony nervously flipped his phone around in his hands. “Nothing particularly heavy on my mind, no.” Fury's eye focused on his phone for just a second too long. “Not... chatting with anyone who might be of interest to Shield?” Tony shook his head quickly. “Nope. Just Pepper. She's always working really late.” Fury leaned forwards, black leather coat creaking. “I know that Pepper’s at a benefit concert tonight...” He gave a predatory smile as he confirmed that the Iron Maiden hadn't escaped notice. “Lucky it's not a school night, huh?” Tony rolled his eyes and pursed his lips: he liked Fury for the most part, but the man did have an annoying tendency to try and be overly dramatic.

 

Fury waited for Tony to react beyond the eye roll but he refused to take the bait and the leader of Shield ended up breaking the silence. “You know you two aren't exactly subtle. It's actually kind of cute.” The man stood and moved closer. “How long did you think you were going to be able to shelter her, Stark? She's taking out gang members left right and center. The media loves her.” Tony bit the inside of his cheek trying to stay quiet. “The LAPD... less so. They're just waiting for you to screw up and give some proof or admit it and then they're going to slap on a nice pair of metal bracelets and ship her to juvenile detention.” Tony finally snapped. “They wouldn't be so goddamn stupid to do that to her!” Fury pushed back his coat and put his hands on his hips, and tilted his head like he was trying to understand. “I have half a mind to help them do it, Stark. She's an unknown entity working under her own governance, with access to the kind of technology that only you had before.” Tony quickly snapped back at him. “She's under control!”

 

Fury pointed an accusative finger at him. “Under your control?? Because you're known for your level judgement and well-thought-out decisions!” Tony was irritated now. “What do you want from me... from us?” Fury looked less like an upset bird of prey now and crossed his arms instead. “When you left the Avengers initiative we lost a fundamental member of the team. I want to have Romanov evaluate the kid and see if she can be a replacement.” Tony's eyes went wide and he stubbornly shook his head. “Over my dead body. If she had to do what I did with that nuke... if she didn’t... didn't make it b-... back.” He swallowed past the lump forming in his throat at the idea and shook his head emphatically. “Over. My. Dead. Body.”

 

Fury's eye narrowed as though evaluating his reaction before suddenly relaxing and shrugging. “Alright papa bear, whatever you say.” Tony was surprised but didn't say anything as Fury strode towards the back door. He turned, half in and half out of the house, and fixed another predatory grin on the former hero. “At least bring her to meet the team. I know she's already met the doctor... I also know Natasha is eager to meet her. We'll get some pizza delivered.” He left as silently as he'd come, softly closing the door behind him, and Tony laughed to himself as he tried to imagine an Avengers pizza night and then stopped as he realised that it was probably going to be an actual thing.


	10. Snow? In L.A?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! You thought I wasn't writing this anymore didn't you!

****

Sophia was all for cops trying to do their jobs, she decided, but their current behavior towards her was absolutely unnecessary and just a little bit stupid. She was standing in the middle of the street with a spotlight from an overhead helicopter beaming down on her, with her muscled captive unconscious at her feet and her hands in the air at their request. Her HUD informed her that she was mostly surrounded by men in uniform, and she groaned unhappily. If she tried to just take off or run away, they'd shoot her en masse and probably be able to disable the suit (permanently). She had the option of smoke bombs and a fun chaff/firecracker combo but she couldn't deploy those without doing damage to the bastard at her feet - and she wasn't about to kill him now she'd decided to be merciful to the fucker. Her options were running out fast. 

 

The Iron Maiden cursed as the cops started closing in: an EMP pulse generator would be mighty handy, but of course it had been left on her workbench. Her eyes scanned the surroundings desperately: there was really no other way. She started to lower her hands in preparation for a final stand when a voice from behind the line of riot cops called out. 

“I wouldn't do that if I were you.” 

Sophia focused on the voice and her jaw dropped. 

_ “Director Fury.” _

The voice modulation made her sound less surprised and for that she was thankful. The man strolled through the line of police towards her, unfazed by the heavy firepower surrounding the two of them, and nodded to her. 

“Iron Maiden.” 

He lowered his voice. 

“Follow my lead.” 

He turned away and addressed the thickest cluster of cops. 

“You all should know better than to point weaponry at my agents. In fact,” 

he put his hands on his hips to look intimidatingly at them 

“you should be thankful. She's brought you the leader of one of the most notorious gangs in the city.” 

Sophia picked up what he was putting down and raised her voice. 

_ “Yeah I mean it's no big deal or anything, it's not like I risked my life doing it. Got shot at and almost died a few times.” _

Fury gave her a warning glance. 

“Right. So unless you want to make international headlines I suggest you all back off and go on home.” 

A magnified voice from behind the lines of uncomfortable-looking riot police called for them to disperse, and grudgingly the circle dissipated. Two very nervous members of the force approached and Sophia grabbed up her captive. 

_ “He's all yours.” _

She tossed him at them like he was a doll and they caught him with grunts of surprise. Fury waited until the trio had staggered out of earshot before he put a hand on Sophia’s shoulder and turned. 

“We really need to talk about this lone vigilante stuff. I'd like to have one of my agents assess you for your suitability for inclusion in the Avengers initiative.” 

 

Sophia bit her lip and looked over her shoulder at the retreating figure of her mother’s murderer.

_ “Sorry Director, I've just completed my mission.” _

Fury followed her general eyeline and then nodded. 

“Of course, I understand. You've got school and friends to worry about. You don't want to be stuck in a stupid team with a bunch of overpowered adults.” 

They'd stopped walking and were standing under a street lamp. 

“Well if you ever invent anything you think might be useful to Shield, don't hesitate to call me - we offer very competitive funding for research. And if there's a big end-of-the-world type scenario, I might give you a buzz so don't follow in your father’s footsteps and wreck your suit.” 

He handed her a card and offered a rare smile: it looked out of place on the usually somber man. He turned and walked away, and she looked down at the card for a few seconds and opened her mouth to make a customary smartass remark but Fury had disappeared. Sophia looked back at the card and frowned as she realized that her suit didn't have pockets.

 

* * *

 

Christmas in L.A. always had a disappointing lack of snow, which made the teenage girl feel even worse about the season. It was hard to get into the spirit of the season with all the songs about snow and cold weather when you were looking out at warm sands and a perfect ocean throwing waves against the shore. Her dad had hinted at some kind of getaway, and as much as she wanted to leave the city and have a holiday her heroics were probably going to be needed more than before. It had been three months since she'd given her mother's killer to the cops - three months where she'd been able to scale down her patrols and concentrate on bringing her grades up. After their leader was thrown behind bars for several consecutive life sentences the Thousand Eyes gang had practically dissolved: it turned out that one guy doing all the administration of a drug ring was a terrible way to do business. 

 

Sophia was currently sprawled in one of the many expensive leather couches, her legs folded underneath her comfortably and a book open in her hands. She kept staring at the christmas tree: it was magnificent, decked out in more decorations and lights than a Vegas casino. The smell of pine infused the house, but it wasn't entirely the tree that held the teenage hero’s attention. Mysterious boxes of all shapes and sizes appeared as if by magic each night, and she'd gleefully discovered that a great many of them were for her. She'd overheard Pepper saying to Tony that he was spoiling her, but she wasn't complaining at all. After last Christmas, anything was going to be an improvement. She heard footsteps approaching down one of the hallways and broke her gaze away from the boxes under the tree and the flashing lights and stared at her book. Tony wandered down the hallway and threw himself into the couch next to Sophia, grabbing at one of the many random plates of festive fruit and nuts nearby and picking through it. 

“Grape?”

She glanced at the proffered fruit in his hand and shook her head. Tony shrugged and ate it, picking his way through the plate.

“What're you reading?”

She turned the cover over for him to look at.

“Agatha Christie… it's kind of my Christmas tradition.” 

She looked back at the pages fondly.

“It was the last gift my mum bought me before everything went to shit at home.”

Tony was quiet for a long time, and the silence was filled by quiet soothing classical music cascading from the hidden speakers throughout the house. 

 

Pepper was at work: despite the holiday festivities, she couldn't afford to take the time off. Sophia was having a bit of trouble adjusting to such a chilled out house - in her experience Christmas had always been a time of sadness turmoil and heartache. To just be able to sit and do nothing was a peculiar novelty and she wasn't exactly sure how to deal with it. Her dad seemed to have picked up on that and had been devising more and more obscure ways to distract from her strange feelings. He was a strange man, Tony Stark. She found herself studying him as he continued to poke his way through the plate - he looked and talked like a crass playboy bored with his money, but his actions never seemed to match up with what he said. The look of pure anger and fear on his face when she'd come home with her suit riddled with bullet holes and Nick Fury’s card clenched in her fist… 

“Penny for your thoughts kiddo?”

She realised she'd been staring blankly at him and shrugged.

“Just thinking how I don't want to be the one to tell Pepper that all the cashews and only the cashews are gone from yet another bowl of mixed nuts.”

Tony snorted but subtly dropped some of the cashews he'd been collecting in his hand back in the bowl. 

 

He licked the salt from his palm and crunched the cashews.

“How would you like to mess around with the air conditioning and see if we can fill the house with snow?”

The prospect of actually doing something with her time was too good to pass up. She carefully laid her book aside.

“You're on.”

The pair raced up the stairs and hurried along to the corridor to the closet that housed the server that controlled the house environment. Their plan of attack was simple enough, and the two geniuses were able to supercharge the cooler units, combine them with the house sprinkler system, and start a gentle shower of snowflakes from every vent in practically no time at all.

_ “Sir… Miss…!! What have you done??” _

Jarvis didn't sound pleased. Tony highfived his daughter. 

“We made it snow in L.A.”

He wandered towards the nearest vent spewing white and ran his hand under it to gather some snow.

“Ah that's cold…!”

He turned to throw the handful at Sophia but she got there first and splatted him directly in the face with a handful of her own. Tony spluttered and scraped at his face as he heard running footsteps and a laugh fly past him.

“Oh you're so dead you little…”

He followed the footprints in the snow down the stairs and through the living room, mentally setting up his plan of attack, only to find Sophia standing in the middle of the room transfixed by the snow sifting down onto the large tree. 

“It looks like a real Christmas tree…”

Her voice was quiet and full of childlike wonder, and Tony’s heart melted - he often forgot she was still so young. He put an arm around her and the two of them silently watched the snow softly fall on the room. 

“Pepper is going to kill us, you know.”

Tony looked down at his daughter and smiled at the snowflakes gathering in her hair.

“Most definitely. We won't survive the night.”

Sophia smiled back with her mother's smile and then her face suddenly dropped when Tony tipped the handful of ice-cold melting snow he'd been holding down the back of her neck. The shriek Sophia gave wasn’t strictly human, and she scrabbled at her clothing to try and get the snow out of it. Tony laughed at her and ran. He skidded on the slippery floor and was sent crashing into a pile of snow gathering by one of the couches. It was Sophia’s turn to laugh and follow up his mishap with a clumsy snowball to the face. 

 

*

 

Pepper came home to a house filled with snow and stared around in horror. Knowing that they were going to be in trouble anyway the mischievous pair had managed to get in a full afternoon of snow-related activities. There was a huddle of well-dressed snowmen in the foyer, looking suspiciously like the Avengers. A makeshift ski slope had been formed down the stairs, and evidence of many missed snowballs glittered on the walls. A pair of snow angels were on the floor in the living room, and tired chatter echoed in from the kitchen. Pepper managed to pick her way through the makeshift snowfields without falling (no easy feat in stiletto heels) and came across the pair of idiots she'd somehow saddled herself with arguing how to make proper hot chocolate. Tony was attempting to attack a pair of mugs with the kettle.

“You gotta put in some hot water before you pour in the milk to melt the chocolate!”

Sophia was resolutely keeping her hands across the mugs.

“Take your nasty ass hot water away, you need to heat the milk in a saucepan with a pinch of cinnamon.” 

Neither of them noticed Pepper until she spoke.

“Why don't you just ask Jarvis to make it for you?”

The pair whirled and Sophia withdrew her hands guiltily from over the mugs. Tony took advantage of this and tipped some of the hot water into each and then put down the kettle. Pepper put her hands on her hips and stayed quiet, and the pair immediately tried to talk their excuses over each other.

“It was his fault Pepper-”

“The air conditioning unit was already malfunctioning-”

“I tried to stop him-”

“She did in fact try and fail to stop me-”

“The whole thing was already a mess-”

Immediately the pair both stopped talking and Tony lamely concluded

“... at least the Christmas tree looks pretty…?”

Pepper gave him a look he knew far too well - it was the look she gave him when she was mentally tallying up his pros and cons and using it to see if it would be worthwhile to stay with him. She relaxed and sat down at the breakfast bar.

“Make me some of that hot chocolate and I'll forgive you. But not Tony’s way.”

Sophia smirked at her dad and then took charge, shooing him out and pouring out serves of milk and pinches of cinnamon and spoonfuls of chocolate in a flurry of activity. Tony pressed a kiss to Pepper’s forehead as thanks for being so patient and understanding, and she just rested her chin on her hand and watched the flurry of activity by the stove as father and daughter bickered.

 

*

 

The house was cleaned up by morning. Floors were returned to their polished states and all evidence of snow was swept away. To Sophia's disappointment the snow Avengers were also cleaned up and she paused at the bottom of the stairs to mourn their loss. The adults were sleeping late - she didn't want to think about what they'd been doing. She had full run of the house for at least a few hours. Debating about what to do with her time she headed for the kitchen and was very surprised to see someone sitting at the breakfast bar. The woman was small, with a shock of bright red curls, and she was just casually reading the paper. Sophia froze for approximately half a second and then fled to the nearest Jarvis keypad. It had been disabled and it wouldn't be worth the time to try and fix it. Her phone was upstairs - the house phone was missing. She was trapped. A voice called from the kitchen.

“You're trapped Sophia. You should probably come and talk to me.”

Warily she padded into the kitchen and stood there nervously as the woman sitting at the counter looked up from her paper. An empty espresso cup showed she'd been there for a while. The woman smiled, getting up and extending a hand.

“I'm Natasha. Natasha Romanov. I'm…”

Sophia cut her off.

“Black Widow…!”

Natasha gave a wry smile as the teenager shook her hand eagerly.

“I was going to say an Agent of Shield but yes sometimes I'm Black Widow.”

Sophia grinned.

“I'd love to talk to you about that custom malware you've got sitting on the Stark Industries network. Very clever stuff, you used random binary rehashing to avoid the malware scanners. How'd you get past the junk code it spews out after the 64th recombination?”

Natasha was surprised for just an instant before she recovered with a smile.

“Director Fury said you were good. How'd you find that?”

Sophia felt for a seat as she gushed.

“Pure coincidence! I was poking around in the binary logs - so many people disregard them as a great source of info - and I saw it as it changed.”

Natasha sighed.

“So often good vulnerabilities are discovered purely by accident by people who happened to know what to look for being in the right place. Are you going to tell your dad?”

Sophia shrugged.

“Only if you don't tell me how you got around the maximum rehash limit.”

Natasha smiled again.

“When it reaches 64 rehashes it compresses the information and copies to an unused series of bytes deep in the RAM and then hard resets its code. That was particularly tricky to implement.”

Sophia nodded thoughtfully. Something seemed to dawn on her then.

“Why did you break into our house?”

The woman fixed her with a steady gaze. 

“To see if you're worth all the fuss. I recommend getting used to having random agents pop in and out, Fury said you were probably even more brilliant than your dad. That got a lot of people's interest.” 

Sophia actually blushed. 

“I'm not that special. It's not particularly hard to be smarter than Tony.”

Natasha narrowed her eyes and kept up that steady gaze. A hand shot out and Sophia flinched involuntarily, closing her eyes as she expected to be touched in some way - only to peek them open when nothing happened and see the piece of paper Natasha was holding out to her. 

“My number. The private one. Commit to memory then eat the paper, don't put it in your phone. If you ever get into trouble,”

the redhead gave a larger smile that looked more fiendish than anything

“then call me. I'll come running.”

Sophia took the piece of paper and nodded.

“Thanks… I'll trade you something good for the code to your rehashing binary malware.”

Natasha pursed her lips as she thought about it.

“Come visit me on the Helicarrier and I'll see if I can swing it.”

She got up and went to the back door. Sophia waved and then looked down at the paper - a handwritten series of digits that was surprisingly easy to memorise. She looked back up and the agent was gone. Unsure if she'd been serious about eating the paper Sophia licked the corner experimentally and watched it dissolve into a sugary mess. 

“Huh.”

 

*

 

Christmas Eve was a very cosy affair - the temperature dropped enough for it to be comfortable for them to light the largely decorative fire in the living room. Pepper very quickly banned Tony from being in charge of the fire after she caught him trying to sneak fireworks and rocket fuel into it to “just jazz it up a bit”. Sophia, who'd missed out on just about all of the quintessential childhood experiences, was given charge of the blaze in exchange for roasted marshmallows and, to a lesser extent, the task of defending it from Tony and his jazzy fireworks. The house smelled of amazing cooking - Pepper had hired a chef and she was busily preparing the christmas feast for them. It was set to be the best Christmas ever for Sophia; even if the house was attacked and all the presents and everything else were burned to ash. As much as she wouldn't admit it to herself, she was overjoyed to have a family again.

 

Tony, having failed yet again to sneak a firecracker past his daughter, sat back on one of the couches and sighed.

“The guests will be along at about noon tomorrow for lunch.”

Sophia looked up - guests? 

“Doctor Banner is always early darling, don't forget to be up before eleven so you have time to wake up properly and enjoy some time with us.”

Pepper turned the page of her book and missed Tony mouthing something that looked suspiciously like ‘yes mum’. Sophia blew out the marshmallow she'd accidentally set on fire - still getting the hang of cooking them - and looked sadly at the blackened mess.

“Who's coming over?”

Tony shrugged.

“Just a couple of people you might have heard of. Bruce, of course… Nick Fury never RSVPs but if we exclude him he'll definitely turn up. Natasha Romanov. Clint Barton… a fine young man called Steve Rogers. He always makes a big deal about togetherness at Christmas. I invited Thor but I think he's offworld and he doesn't understand Christmas as a concept anyway.”

Sophia’s eyes had started to sparkle: the Avengers were going to be at her Christmas dinner! 

“So they'll be here around at noon. They don't need presents.”

Pepper turned another page in her book.

“I've organised a tasteful gift for each of them from the family.”

Tony looked at her in surprise and they started to bicker but all Sophia could think about was the fact that she was going to be having Christmas lunch with the Avengers.

 

The teenager could barely sleep that night. She was too excited at the prospect of getting to meet professional superheroes. Part of her tried to remind her that technically she was a professional hero too, and so was her dad for that matter, but she ignored it. Her dad didn't count since he'd gone inactive and she was hardly a professional - especially compared to the freaking Avengers. Finally around 2am she decided that it would be impossible to sleep and got up. She wandered the house in her pajamas - by this point she knew every inch of it - and went to stand at the large ocean-facing window in the living room to watch the dark sea lit by bright moonlight. 

_ “Can't sleep, miss?” _

One of Jarvis’ screens blinked awake keeping an eye on her.

“Nope. Too much on my mind.”

The screen flickered as though Jarvis blinked.

_ “Would you like a cup of tea? I can stoke the fire if you wish, too.” _

Sophia smiled.

“What would we do without you, Jarvis?”

She stayed staring out at the icy ocean for a few minutes and then picked up the warm cup from the kitchen dispenser. True to his word Jarvis stoked up the fire and Sophia lowered herself onto the soft rug and folded up her legs to her chin to watch it and try to think of nothing. Her mind kept wandering back to that mystery caller - who was he? Why was he financing a drug operation? What was his motivation? She'd shut down the Thousand Eyes but if he was as powerful as he claimed then surely he could just start up again anytime he liked with a fresh lackey and a new bumper crop of desperate kids.

 

A light touch on her shoulder made her jump and nearly spill her tea.

“Can't sleep?”

Pepper Potts sat on the edge of the couch next to her in a white silk dressing gown. Sophia shrugged and sipped her tea. Since she'd moved in with Tony and Pepper (just while her place was being renovated, she swore) the two women hadn't really had a chance to chat much. 

“Excitement about tomorrow.”

She lied badly, steadying her cup with both hands. Pepper was watching her.

“You know, Tony can't lie to me either. Are you worried about impressing the Avengers?”

Sophia shrugged but Pepper knew she was right on the money and waited for Sophia to crumble and fall.

“I just… they've all heard this great stuff about me and I'm just… me. Without my suit I'm just a disappointingly boring teenage girl.”

Pepper put a supportive hand on her shoulder and squeezed.

“A brilliant teenage girl. You built a functional suit out of literal junk by yourself. You brought in the leader of one of the worst gangs in the city by yourself. You got justice for your mother’s death when no one else could and you're not even 18 yet.”

Sophia found her cheeks heating up under the sudden praise.

“And,” Pepper added “you can keep up with Tony when he goes on his weird tangents. Not many people can do that.”

“But they're supersoldiers and spies and assassins. I'm just a high school student!”

Pepper gave her shoulder another squeeze. 

“They're also people, just like us. You can't let them intimidate you. Your dad and Steve like to bicker a lot but in the end it's mostly harmless, and we'll both be there to back you up no matter what happens.” She leaned down and hugged Sophia. Wordlessly she got up and swished back upstairs, and Sophia looked down at her now cold cup of tea. 

_ “I agree with Ms Potts. You can't let the Avengers intimidate you, out of uniform the lot of them are more like errant schoolchildren than highly trained operatives… and if they're rude I can always douse them with water.” _

She downed the cup.

“Thanks Jarvis. I think I'll be ok to sleep now.” 

The AI wished her goodnight and a very merry Christmas, and with a smile she trailed up to bed.


	11. Christmas Fluff

The Stark family had some very peculiar Christmas traditions. Pepper was the first one up, bringing both Tony and Sophia a cup of coffee. Sophia straggled out of bed shortly after and found Pepper humming along with the Christmas carols beaming through every speaker in  the house as she cut tree-shaped cookies out.

“Good morning! Merry Christmas!”

Sophia squinted at her and put the empty coffee cup in the sink - it was around 7am, after all, and the teenager’s brain wasn’t switched into the ‘on’ position. Pepper handed her a bowl and pointed at the boxes of cereal neatly arranged on the counter.

“Breakfast! We’ve got a full day ahead!”

Sophia obeyed and watched Pepper as she ate - the woman was now laying the cookies out on a baking tray and putting them into the oven. 

“We just have to wait for Tony to get up and then we can open the gifts.”

Sophia groaned - Tony never got up before lunchtime if he could help it. Fortified with sugary cereal the teenager took it upon herself to wake up her dad.

 

He was snoring gently face-down, an arm wrapped around one of the many pillows in the bed and the covers a rumpled mess. Sophia eased the door open and considered her options - he’d missed out on all the years of her jumping on the bed as a child, maybe it was time to catch him up? Water on the face was always a good option, as was standing over him and just staring until his primal brain realised he was being watched and he woke up, and she knew for a fact that Jarvis had a localised alarm he could bring the party… too many options. Sophia shook her head subtly, made her decision, and then took a running leap.

“DAD!”

The jump was a bit higher than she’d intended and she hit the bed next to him with a hard thump. He woke up with a yelp as he (and several pillows) were catapulted out of it, and he hit the floor with a groan.

“What the hell…?”   
Sophia scrambled over and grinned at him over the side of the bed.

“It’s Christmas!”

Tony was clearly disoriented and he fumbled around a bit saying random words. Finally he clawed his way up and glared at the nearest clock.

“Sophia! It’s not even eight yet…!”   
She grinned again.   
“Pepper said we had to wait for you to get up before we could open the presents.”

His angry expression softened and he huffed sulkily as he headed for the bathroom. Sophia, sensing her job was done here, made a swift exit followed by breaking the house rules and sliding down the bannister - if she couldn’t get away with it at Christmas then what was the point.

 

Pepper had finished clearing away her cookie-making paraphernalia and was wiping down the bench when Sophia scampered into the kitchen looking smug.

“What was that thump?”

“Oh nothing, just dad falling out of bed.”

“Falling out of…?”

“Yeah, I realised he’s never had the wonderful Christmas morning tradition of his excited kid jumping on him while he’s trying to sleep so I gave it to him. He wasn’t expecting it so he fell.”

Pepper just looked at her, and then went back to her cleaning. Tony eventually joined them, yawning like a circus lion and heading for coffee. He pressed a kiss to his fiancee’s cheek and then slumped over the bench in dramatic dad fashion. 

“Sophia you’ve killed me. I didn’t get my beauty sleep and now I can’t go on.”

Looking at him critically, Sophia pursed her lips.

“I’m sure the modelling world will be able to struggle on without you somehow.”

He didn’t react beyond opening his mouth and making a sad noise - it was clear that his sass had stayed in bed.

 

Tony still hadn’t fully woken up when they moved into the lounge and headed for the pile of presents under the tree. Sophia eyed the large pile - most of them were for her, but she wasn’t sure exactly what else she could receive considering the shower of gifts Tony had given her in lieu of many years of missed birthdays. 

Tony yawned “it’s the kid’s job to give out the presents.”

Sophia fell onto the pile - grabbing gifts left and right and sorting them with efficient greed. The mountain of presents had been taunting her for weeks and it was finally time. Each of the gifts was delightfully wrapped in shiny paper, with bows and ribbons festooning almost every surface. The colourful paper had hidden a wealth of interesting projects, supplies and fun looking toys from Tony and a number of delicate wisps of clothes from Pepper, and the teenager sat on the floor surrounded by new toys and carefully torn paper and felt tears well up. It wasn’t that the sheer volume of presents was overwhelming - she’d prepared for that weeks ago while watching them pile up. It was that for the first time since her mum had died she had people who cared enough to think carefully about what she might enjoy. 

 

Pepper and Tony, who’s piles of gifts were lesser, were taking their time unwrapping and thoroughly scrutinising each object. Pepper received an inordinate amount of scarves - Sophia supposed that most people didn’t know what else to get her and it was very easy to pick up an attractive scarf. Tony was an even split between tools and booze - again, it seemed like most people weren’t sure what to get him, and both elicited bored sighs. Sophia noticed both of them left her gift til last to open, and occupied herself fiddling with her new toys or admiring the pretty clothes. Finally Pepper finished wading through her scarves and picked up the small box wrapped in pretty lavender paper. She gently pulled it open and then opened the little black box to reveal an elegant teardrop diamond on a simple gold chain. Pepper pulled it from the box and held it up to the light, admiring it - it was exactly the kind of thing she liked, simple yet beautiful. It sure beat getting another scarf. Wordlessly she leaned down and hugged the girl she was starting to think of as her own daughter, nestling her cheek against Sophia’s hair for a second, and then put the pretty thing around her neck. Tony smiled - it made him happy to see his girls getting along - and opened his own lavender shrouded gift. His was slightly larger than Pepper’s, and he took care not to rip the paper. 

 

The wrapping unfolded and revealed a small metallic cube. He turned it over in his hands - it was smooth and cool, but there were little grooves all over it.    
“What is this?”   
Sophia shuffled over, collecting discarded paper under her knees, and took the cube.

“It’s something cute, techy and I know you don’t have it already.”   
She fiddled with the lines and the cube suddenly unfolded into the shape of a small vaguely-cuboid robot. It peered up at the two of them.

_ “Would you like any condiments sir?” _

The little robotic voice sounded like a tiny version of Jarvis.

“Oh no that’s so cute…”   
Sophia held the robot out at her father’s words.

“I originally designed him as a salt and pepper grinder who could come to you since the dining table is so big but then I thought hey, why not add other stuff while I’m at it? He’s full of garlic butter and sauce right now.”   
Tony grabbed his empty coffee cup in delight.

“Put some butter in this!”   
The tiny robot hummed happily and deposited a squirt of garlic-smelling butter into the cup and for some reason the sight of it made Tony giggle like a small child. 

 

He sat delightedly watching the tiny robot squirting sauce and garlic butter into the empty cup for at least ten minutes while Sophia and Pepper cleaned up the living room - it took Sophia three trips to ferry all her gifts to her bedroom. The room looked less like a paper bomb had gone off in it afterwards, a sedate number of gifts wrapped in matte white with assorted-coloured ribbons tied around them under the tree: gifts for the Avengers. The chef had arrived while they were unwrapping presents and was warming things in a large portable catering oven, and Sophia went to make herself useful fetching things. The time passed surprisingly quickly - the chef was hesitant at first but soon was getting Sophia to fetch and carry things - and suddenly Pepper was touching her on the shoulder and telling her if she wanted to shower and get ready that the contingency from Shield would be arriving soon. Sophia apologised to the chef for leaving suddenly and scampered upstairs - she was half excited, half apprehensive about meeting the Avengers. She’d already met two of them, granted, and Director Fury, but that had been in informal circumstances (and in the crosshairs of the LAPD). This was a formal lunch with all of them. What if they didn’t like her? What if they didn’t even acknowledge her? What if Fury asked her to join them again? She hadn’t had a chance to really think about it. She took a few deep breaths - Tony and Pepper would back her up, just in case. 

 

*

 

Half an hour later Sophia had finished showering, dressing and primping. She picked up one of her new toys - a logic puzzle - and curled up on the couch to work on it. From her position she was able to keep an eye on the front door and watch for guests coming in practically unobserved. The first to arrive was Dr Bruce Banner - true to form he was almost forty five minutes early. He was shown in by Pepper and stood patiently rubbing his hands making polite small talk with the two adults about the cold weather. Sophia knew she’d been spotted as soon as Tony looked up and beckoned her over. Reluctantly the teenager unfolded from the couch and came over to greet the scientist. 

“Hi Dr Banner, nice to see you again.”   
He smiled at her, awkward and slightly clunky.

“Good to see you again too, Sophia… I hope your arm is ok.”   
The teenager glanced briefly at her arm - she’d almost forgotten that she’d been really stupid and had attacked someone. 

“Yeah it healed perfectly, thanks for that.”   
He awkwardly smiled again.

“I haven’t had to patch anyone up in a long time, since I’m not technically a medical doctor.”

She smiled back and the pair of them were ushered into the lounge to wait for the other members of Tony’s team. 

 

Steve Rogers was next, a few minutes early. The man’s shoulders were so wide they barely fit through the door, and he was dressed a little stiffly in a blue shirt buttoned all the way up and a pair of formal slacks. He shook Tony’s hand hard - Sophia could see her dad wince from across the hallway - and shook Pepper’s much more gently. Tony flexed his injured hand and made the introductions.

“Captain Steve Rogers, this is my daughter Sophia Perez. Sophia, Steve.”

The walking Dorito reached out his hand and Sophia shook it tentatively: his grip was strong even though she could tell he was trying his hardest to be gentle.

“Nice to meet you, miss Perez.” 

“And you, Captain. I like your shoes.”   
He glanced down at the shiny leather Oxfords and then broke into a surprisingly boyish smile.

“Thanks. They’re vintage.”

Pepper prudently moved the group out of the foyer with a few well-placed comments and ushered them towards the much more comfortable lounge, playing the gracious hostess and offering drinks. 

 

Tony was just finish one of his off-colour anecdotes when the doorbell rang again, and Pepper got up to welcome Natasha, Clint Barton and Director Fury into the house. Natasha had brought along a small gift basket, which she gave to the hostess of the house - Clint gifted her with a bottle of wine, and Director Fury gave her a rare smile. It looked like he’d stepped on a tack, and it unnerved Pepper enough for her to stutter.

“Th-thank you a-all… won’t you come into the lounge, we were all just having drinks.”

She gestured with the hand that held the wine, and the trio headed for the soft seating area. Tony intercepted them to perform introductions.

“Ah! Here’s trouble…! Natasha, Clint, I don’t think you’ve met my daughter Sophia?”   
Natasha smiled at the teenager.

“We’ve met, hello Sophia.”   
Sophia shyly returned the smile, admiring how welcoming her face seemed, and then shook Clint’s hand.

“Nice to meet you Sophia. That suit of yours is a hell of a thing.”

The man gave her a smile too, and then sat down next to Bruce and accepted a drink. Fury loitered by the fireplace, filling the room with the smell of hot leather as his coat heated up, and Natasha perched near one of the massive windows. Sophia folded up onto the couch and listened with wide eyes at the Avengers and Pepper talked and joked with one another. This was absolutely unreal.

 

Natasha turned her head and looked out the window at the asphalt-black clouds sweeping in with alarming speed across the water.

“It looks like it’s going to snow. Or at least rain.”

There was a loud crack of thunder nearby, and Clint downed his drink.   
“Thor said he might show up, and he’s the only dude I know who literally travels via storm.”

Steve pursed his lips.

“It could just be a sudden thunderstorm, we’re right next to the ocean that kind of thing happens.”

 

Sophia was up and over to the window in a matter of seconds. Far in the distance there was lightning forking over the foam-topped breakers. The sight was spectacular, dark clouds rolling and boiling across the whipping frenzy of the ocean - the storm was travelling unusually fast for a natural event, and as she peered out at the darkening sky it seemed like she could pick out something man-sized hurtling through the air. 

“There’s something coming…!”

As the words left her mouth she saw the man-sized thing arc down, heading for the back garden. There was a loud boom and the room was lit by lightning for a second, leaving everyone in it blinking and rubbing their eyes as fat raindrops pelted the windows out of nowhere. Sophia watched from the window as someone walked up the back garden steps towards the house and was first to open the back door when the knock came.

 

Thor Odinson, dressed in a damp suit and carrying a large metal hammer, smiled winningly at the teenager.

“Hello.” 

Sophia invited him in and Pepper handed him a towel, Tony making jokes about taking his cloak in the background that were ignored. Thor politely stowed Mjolnir beside the front door and apologised for being late. Pepper introduced him.

“Thor, this is Sophia Perez - Tony’s daughter.”

They shook hands. Sophia murmured something polite, trying not to feel overawed by the fact that she was currently shaking the hand of a literal god, and Thor broke into another smile.

“Tony has spoken much of you! His pride of your accomplishments is more than one would expect of a father!”

He leaned closer to her conspiratorially.

“I suspect that it’s because he only recently learned of your existence and is trying to catch up with the years of bragging he’s missed out on.”

Thor grinned at Tony and excused himself, accepting the drink Pepper offered him and Sophia gave her father a sidelong look. He looked embarrassed as though Thor had revealed a terrible secret, and shuffled off muttering something about finding out when lunch was being served to diffuse the situation.

 

It turned out that lunch was only a few seconds away from being announced and they piled into the large dining room to seat themselves at a table groaning with aromatic food. The mood was joyful, laughter flowing endlessly as the table became a riot of bad jokes and stories. It didn’t take long before the adults had far too much to drink and got louder and louder, drowning out the soft music flowing from secret speakers. After the main course was done Tony furnished Pepper with a sloppy kiss, declaring that it was time for both dessert and christmas crackers. He practically crawled across the table to offer the end of one to his daughter, who had been happily sitting between Steve Rogers - who couldn’t get drunk - and Natasha - who wasn’t showing that she was. Sophia shrugged and grabbed it: it went off with a spectacular bang and a cloud of bright purple smoke that smelled like berries, leaving Tony holding the majority. A ridiculous paper crown fell out of it and Tony grabbed it, looking at his daughter with a solemn face. He closed his eyes as though mortified and shook his head as he held it out to her: clearly he’d never be caught dead wearing one. Shrugging Sophia took it and looked at the terrible joke - it was more awful than she’d expected and she just gently put it down. 

 

Soon crackers were going off all across the table and variously-coloured paper crowns adorned their heads - Pepper managed to put one on Tony and he just sighed and looked miserable with a scrap of bright paper on his head. Thor laughed heartily at him and smashed a large fist into the table a couple of times making it bend, and the other Avengers dove to save the dishes. Dessert quickly followed, and the afternoon found the superheroes lounging about with cups of coffee in various states of food-related comas. Tony drunkenly challenged Steve to a game of chess on the mostly decorative board and then dragged Sophia in to play for him since his vision was too impaired for him to accurately move the pieces. Instead he spent a few minutes trying to give her advice and eventually gave up to go and have a little nap on one of the deeply comfortable chairs, leaving his daughter and the captain to play on in peace.

 

“Directory Fury tells me that he’s offered you a place in our team.”

Sophia glanced at her opponent and then refocused on the board. She moved a pawn.

“Yep. I’m still not sure if I’ll take it or not. I’m still in high school and my dad really wants me to focus on getting into a good college.”

Steve nodded and countered her move.

“Very sensible. My choice would be to keep you on reserve so you can still help the team out in times of dire emergency, but you can concentrate on your schoolwork most of the time.”

Sophia nodded and moved another piece across the board - she had no idea what she was doing. Steve suddenly looked intensely focused, as though he had to deeply think about his next move, and moved another piece with obvious hesitation.

 

Sophia immediately moved a piece in reply.

“I’m not sure what the Director’s motivation is for recruiting me. It’s not like I’ve stopped an asteroid or a large-scale attack on the city or anything - all I did was bust up a drug ring, and that was an accident. I feel like he’s just doing it because my dad was Iron Man.”

Steve’s hand froze above the pieces and he considered his words carefully.

“The Director wouldn’t recruit you if he didn’t think you had potential to be an exceptional hero in your own right. You don’t have to live in your dad’s shadow, you can do whatever you want. Even turn down the Avengers.”

He gave her a brief smile and reached over to squeeze her hand comfortingly before continuing their game. 

 

Around dinner time (and after a few more games of chess) everyone revived long enough to go back to the dinner table and consume yet more excellent food. Tony handed his daughter a glass of wine and made increasingly violent shushing noises with accompaniment motions when Steve tried to argue with him that she was underage. The teenager just checked her phone and ignored the discussion. After dinner everyone retired back to the lounge or went out into the garden to have a stroll in the gardens and work off some of the food, and Sophia helped the cook clean up before going out to take a brisk walk with her dad. 

 

Tony was moderately sloshed and grabbed his daughter in a big hug that wasn’t a sensible decision for either of them due to food overload.

“Look at this amazing girl. I made her and she’s better than my Iron Man suits or my other inventions and all my possessions combined.”

Sophia flushed - it was unlike her dad to be so sappy - and tried to get away but he was holding her too tightly and she had to give up. When she looked at him she saw he had tears in his eyes.

“I’m so sorry I was never there for you, baby girl. That you had to go through so much alone and scared and I promise you’ll never have to be alone again. They’ll have to kill me to take me from you and I am proving damn hard to kill.” 

He held her tighter and she murmured something comforting, equally embarrassed and endeared towards this strange man. Eventually he let her go and wiped his eyes, and they kept walking in silence as they digested.

 

The Avengers were chased out after yet more coffee and various post-dinner liquors, elegant white gifts pressed onto each of them by Pepper as they left. Finally the house was quiet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you mean, I'm four months late for Christmas??


	12. What, Are You a Pervert?

Winter break was never long enough. Sophia was bundled back to school far before she was ready and resented having to travel through bitter winds and rain to sit in a chilly classroom every morning. She slumped in a seat in some unidentifiable early morning lesson - possibly history - and squinted at the board. 

“Good morning! You’re Sophia, right?”

A hand was thrust in her general direction as the cheery voice addressed her. She frowned and followed the hand back to its owner - a boy she’d never seen before was leaning over with a friendly smile. He had wavy brown hair that looked impossible to tame and a pair of thick glasses. 

“I’m Peter. Peter Parker.”   
Despite the sprinkling of acne and his youthful grin, Sophia could tell that this guy was not high school age.

“Are you a pervert?”

His face blanched and he dropped his hand.

“Wh-what?”   
It was too early for Sophia to be anything other than blunt.

“Are you some kind of sicko? I mean you’re clearly too old to be in high school, and you’re trying to blend in as a student instead of as a teacher, so I’ll ask you again… are you a pervert?”

Parker’s mouth dropped open and he made a shocked noise through his nose. The teacher arrived and didn’t even seem to notice Parker, going along with the lesson teaching a roomful of sleepy teenagers. 

 

The bell rang and Sophia packed her stuff up quickly trying to avoid Parker as he finished the line he was writing and she hurried out. She made it all the way to her locker before he caught up with her, and spoke to her in a low voice.   
“Sophia I need to tell you something.”   
Internal alarm bells ringing Sophia slammed her locker and set her mouth - she’d been through this shit before with a boy, and it had not ended well. 

“I’m not interested in anything you have to say. I do not want to talk to you. You hold no interest for me.”

He sighed and checked around to see if anyone was listening.

“Sophia please…. Nick Fury sent me.”

Oh. That was different.

“What the  _ hell _ ?”

“He thought it would be prudent to put you under surveillance for a little while and decided this was the best way to look after you during the day without your dad knowing. I’m part of the Avengers’ backup squad too. I'm Spiderman.”   
She narrowed her eyes at him - she’d never seen him without his mask before.

“You would have done a lot better if you’d come in as a teacher, you don’t look young enough to pass for a teenager.”   
“I know but we couldn’t get two teacher covers organised in time and I’m the younger one so....”   
“Two?”   
“Two. Natasha Romanov is here as well.”

Sophia couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“Why the hell would Fury want to put me under surveillance?”   
Parker shrugged.   
“I didn’t ask, really. I just do what I’m told, Director Fury is a very scary guy.”

She couldn’t help but smile a tiny bit at that and he gave her an easy answering grin.

“And none of the teachers thought to question why you’re old?”   
He looked a little hurt.

“I’m not  _ that _ old you know, I’m only 25.”

“25  _ is _ old. You’re surrounded by people almost a decade younger than you are. It’s  _ weird _ _. _ ”

Parker shrugged.

“It’s only til you graduate.”

Sophia grudgingly opened her locker again and grabbed her books for her next class before the bell rang.

 

It turned out that Peter Parker had taken all of Sophia’s classes and he clung to her like a socially-awkward limpet at a party full of strangers. As weird as it was to see the twenty five year-old diligently taking notes on a high school class she was sure he was overqualified for, it was kind of nice to have someone to talk to at lunch instead of sitting by herself in a corner like usual. He was telling her stories about his time as a photographer in New York, slipping in enough clever puns and little jokes to make her laugh, when a familiar redhead wandered over to them clutching a stack of brightly-coloured papers.

“Hey there kids.”   
Natasha was basically unrecognisable: her usually bouncy curls had been tamed into a sleek dancer’s bun. She even walked differently, with more deliberation and flowing grace in each step. She’d traded her usual dark colours for a strange assembly of bright leggings and a pastel lavender cardigan with pearl buttons, and she handed each of them a bright paper from the stack in her arms.

“I’m the new drama and dance teacher, Naomi. I’m offering a new extra-curricular dance class, after school three days a week. All are welcome.”   
She gave them a meaningful look and then walked away. Sophia looked down at the flyer in her hand and squinted at the bright pink. 

“Does she always take a fake name that starts with ‘NA’?”

Peter snorted and looked at his own acid yellow paper.

“As far as I can work out yes, I’ve never seen her use a cover that was anything different but then I haven’t been part of the team very long.”

 

Before she could follow that line of questioning the bell for the end of the lunch period rang and they were ushered from the cafeteria and back into the halls of learning. Sophia forgot all about the slip of blindingly bright paper she shoved into her bag until she got home that afternoon, the pink paper falling out as she unpacked her books for her study session. The teenager bit her lip as she looked at it - dancing really wasn’t her thing, but Natasha had seemed really keen to get her into the class. Who knew, maybe she’d like it? Shrugging she put the flyer aside and cracked the books. She didn’t get very far before Peter texted her - they’d exchanged numbers at the school gate (mostly for Avengers stuff, he’d promised) - admitting that he had no freaking clue how to work through the math problems they’d been given.

_ “I used to be good at this kind of stuff but I guess I’ve forgotten it all.” _

Sophia smiled and put the phone aside without replying - he’d either work it out on his own, or beg her for help. The next series of messages a few minutes later made her actually laugh.

_ “Now I’ve got Cap helping me? He’s very enthusiastic but he knows next to nothing about quadratics?” _

_ “Hawkeye came over to see what we were doing. He’s just as bad as Cap, the two of them are arguing about triangles. Obv they’re both wrong.” _

_ “BW came to see what all the noise was about. She’s pretty good at math.” _

_ “Cap and Hawkeye are loudly arguing now, v distracting :(” _

_ “Fury got involved. He sent Cap and Hawkeye away and asked if I needed a tutor.” _

The texts were followed by a snapchat of Black Widow and Parker both facepalming as Fury tried to separate Cap and Hawkeye in the background.

Her laughter attracted her prowling father to her doorway.

“What're you laughing at, kiddo?”

Sophia was giggling too hard to articulate, and instead just showed the phone to him. He chuckled hard at first and then took a good long look.

“Who sent you that?”

Sophia took her phone back and shrugged noncommittally.

“Peter Parker. Dunno how he got my snapchat but he's a funny guy.”

“Pe… as in Spiderman? What is Peter Parker doing contacting you?”

“Nothing really, I guess he felt like being friendly in a way that I use instead of going via telegram and pony express like the rest of the team.”

Tony’s eyes were narrowed but he didn't push it, instead choosing to look suspiciously at her phone.

“Anyway dad I'm in the middle of my homework so…”

He seemed to take the hint and headed for the door, pausing to give one more look at the phone.

“Look, Sophia… if he wants to meet up with you let me know, ok? It's not that I don't trust him but he is a lot older than you and…”

“Ew dad don't be gross! I think he just likes having someone under the age of fifty to talk to who ‘gets’ the superhero thing.”

Tony gave her a dark look and made her promise to tell him if Spidey ever wanted to meet up with her. She agreed, but refrained from telling him that he now attended her school. After all, she'd promised to say something if Spiderman wanted to hang out but he hadn't said anything about doing the same for Peter Parker. 

 

*

 

The dance classroom was formidable - one of the rooms off the gym had been repurposed over the winter break and was now all polished floorboards and mirrors. A new piano sat in the corner and Natasha stood in the center of the room, arms crossed tightly over her chest. Her cardigan today was a delicate yellow, and her leggings were a disturbing shade of orange. With her burnished red hair she looked like a stick of citrus candy. There were a few other students loitering when Sophia and Peter entered the room in their gym gear, and Natasha looked at them like a large bird of prey looking at a pair of rabbits.

“Take your shoes off. You’re the last two to arrive.”   
Exchanging quick looks Peter and Sophia shucked their shoes and were organised into one of two rows by Natasha - Sophia, being the shorter, in the front and the taller Peter in the back. The lesson happened and was over so quickly, but it still left all of the small group of students lying about gasping for air covered in sweat. Natasha took them through a vigorous warm down and then shooed the class out - motioning for Peter and Sophia to hang back. 

 

When all the other students had straggled out, exhausted, Natasha closed the door and eyed the two young heroes. 

“Are you two behaving?”   
They looked at each other and Sophia answered.

“Yes?”   
Natasha nodded.

“Good. Fury’s asking for a weekly report from me about you two. Now I can just tell him yes.”   
She shooed them out and closed the door quickly. Sophia looked at her friend and slouched, holding her back.

“I don’t think I’ll be going back. Natasha is a slavedriver.”

“Yeah my poor old man body can’t take that kind of punishment and I’m biologically enhanced.”

Sophia laughed and then groaned. The pair of them shuffled to their lockers to grab their things, chatting amiably about how dark it was still and telling each other bad jokes. 

 

They headed together for the bike racks through the parking lot, and Sophia stopped when she recognised one of the cars parked close by.    
“Dammit...”   
She stormed over to it - a gleaming red SUV - and knocked on the tinted window. The window rolled down and her dad grinned at her.

“Hey kiddo… I got worried when you didn’t get home on time.”   
Sophia looked skyward.

“Dad I told you three times this week I was trying out a new dance class tonight and would be home later.”

Tony looked past her, that winning grin still on his face but his eyes were dangerous.

“Is that your new friend?”

Sophia shook her head at her dad in warning as Peter warily approached wheeling his bike.

“Hello Mr Stark…”   
Tony tilted his head in a friendly manner - the rest of his body language was anything but.

“Peter Parker, right? Hey do you want to come over for dinner? I feel like I should get to know you since you’re becoming such _ good _ friends with my daughter...”

He gestured to the back of the car.

“You two can just stick your bikes on the rack and I’ll give you a ride.” 

Sophia looked quickly at her friend, subtly shaking her head. Peter glanced at her and gave a ‘might as well’ shrug. 

 

The car ride back to the Stark residence was awkward. Tony had tried to insist that Peter ride up front with him but Sophia had taken the front seat before he could get in, furnishing her father with a malicious glare every time he tried to strike up conversation. Pepper was waiting for them by the door and she welcomed Peter a lot more politely than Tony had. He got the house tour from Sophia as Pepper and Tony bickered very quietly about Tony’s poor life choices in the kitchen. Peter shoved his hands into his pockets as he surveyed the view from one of the windows.

“This is a really nice place. Where do you keep your suit?”

Sophia grinned and led him to her bedroom. With a flick of her hand a secret panel in the wall opened and there stood the Iron Maiden gleaming in the light. The suit had had many improvements over the months and the version before them was vastly different from the piece of junk she'd cobbled together alone in the bricked up garage of a for sale house.

“This thing is so cool. Do you think you could build me one?”

“From what I hear you have no trouble building your own tech.”

Peter made a bunch of embarrassed noises.

“Well it's nothing as impressive as the Iron Maiden… but I guess I do alright.”

They were interrupted by Pepper’s exasperated voice calling them for dinner.

 

Jarvis was surprisingly good at cooking for an AI with no real physical presence. Instead he usually relied on a small custom robot that was perfectly sized to ferry ingredients from the fridge to the stove (lately, he’d also been relying on Sophia who felt uncomfortable eating food she didn’t help prepare). The meal itself was moderately awkward - Peter seemed in awe of the small robot that Jarvis used to serve and of the tiny condiment robot that Tony stubbornly refused to share with him. Pepper did her best to keep up the conversation but it was stilted and Tony didn’t participate much. After their meal Tony offered to drive Peter home, but Sophia frowned at him and he actually closed his mouth for once.

“We’ll take my car.”   
She grabbed the keys and bounced out, ignoring Peter thanking Tony and Pepper for dinner, and instead concentrated on getting his bike off the back of her dad’s SUV and into her own sportscar. Peter followed her out and stopped, looking at the car.

“Wow you have your own Maserati… how many teenagers have their own Maserati?”   
Sophia made a face.

“One of the many presents my dad gave me as an apology for missing out on years worth of birthdays and christmases. I basically never use it unless I have to, it’s too flashy and I don’t want people to recognise me. I’d take dad’s but… the paparazzi know all his cars.”

She slid into the driver’s seat and Peter joined her, clinging onto the door as she put her foot down and sped up the driveway.

 

*

 

Peter’s apartment was in a small complex close to the school. Sophia’s ridiculous car purred its way through the Los Angeles traffic and pulled into the complex. She parked in the parking spot Peter directed her to and turned off the engine. 

“Thanks for the lift, Sophia… Pepper is pretty cool but your dad is kind of weird.”

“‘Kind of weird’ is his normal state. You’ll get used to it. Or… he’ll get used to you and turn relatively normal.”

Peter exited the vehicle grabbed his bike and wheeled it back around so he could talk in the driver’s side window. 

“I’ll see you at school tomorrow. Don’t forget your homework for Ms Getz.”

“Bye Peter.”   
She went to roll up the window when his hand stopped her.

“Sophia… someone’s watching you.”   
“In a car like this? I’m not surprised.”   
“No. Not a neighbor. This is… more evil.”   
“Is that even a thing you can detect?”   
“Evil intentions? Of course it is. Drive really carefully, ok?”   
Sophia glanced at the boot of her car.

“I’m always prepared just in case someone tries to interfere. See you tomorrow spider-boy.”   
“It’s  man and you know it.”

She finished rolling up the window without answering and the engine purred itself alive. Now he’d mentioned it she could feel it too - a creeping sensation centered somewhere between her shoulderblades and her neck that meant someone was watching her. The teenager shrugged it off and pulled out of the parking lot.

 

Behind her a dark shadow extricated itself from the surrounding rooftops and slid down the side of the building on a handy drainpipe. They had heard and seen everything that had happened in the parking lot, and they slunk away into the sparse foot traffic to join with the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What?? Spiderman, in the story years ahead of canon appearance in the Marvel Universe??


	13. Introducing Chris Hewitt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we switch views to follow Chris "Chewie" Hewitt, a high school footballer feeling the pressure of performance and getting in way over his head.

Chris Hewitt sat hunched at the back of the class, his pen making lazy rounds on the page as it colored the paper in. Math class had always been beyond his abilities - the football star considered any time off the field to be a waste. Instead of learning about numbers or whatever, right now he was daydreaming the old classic about the big game. It was a favourite of his. His hand slid off the pen and over to his arm: it was so itchy he could barely stand it. He absentmindedly scratched it through his sleeve and that seemed to alleviate the itch for a little while but he knew it would only be temporary. He’d need a little something to make it go away, something he’d have to get after football practice. 

 

It was a lot harder to get any decent narcotics since the Iron Maiden came on the scene. He clenched his fist and frowned at the paper: whoever she was, she was a bitch. People like that didn’t understand, they saw the world in black and white. They’d never had to deal with the kind of shit he had to. The pressure of constant perfect performances, the need to get better and better. Coach had been pushing him really hard lately - something to do with the people in nice suits who kept coming to talk to the administrator after games, he thought - and he just needed a little something to help boost his performance. Chris spent the rest of the lessons before practice alternately daydreaming and scratching his arm. Football practice came and went quickly: he was decisive and powerful on the field, even cracking a few jokes in the locker room. He waited until the rest of his team was gone before he made the call.

 

*

 

Chris waited in his car at the prearranged spot fiddling with the radio, switching between three popular stations whenever the one he was listening to played an ad. His dealer liked to meet under a certain specific bridge: the positioning of the concrete supports and the angle of the dip in the land made it hard to see anything that went on there from outside. Chris looked up as headlights appeared in his rearview mirror and then he frowned. His dealer drove a beaten up old Honda minivan with rust splotches one dim headlight. The profile of the car behind him was sleeker, lower to the ground as it audibly purred over the loud radio, and it had those expensive pale blue headlights. The low rumble suddenly shut off and Chris turned in his seat to look. Someone was getting out of the car.

 

A blonde bombshell in a tiny dress and six inch heels approached the driver’s side and smiled in the window at him. Chris didn't hesitate: he hit the window down button.

“Hi. Chris Hewitt?” 

He nodded eagerly.

“My boss wants to talk to you.”

She smiled prettily and walked away from the car. He got out and followed her, watching as she got into the passenger’s side before he approached the driver. It only then occurred to him to be suspicious, and when the driver’s side window rolled down he took an unconscious step back. 

“Chewie. Hello.”

The familiarity of the nickname made Chris frown - only his close friends called him that. He couldn’t see the driver’s face and that disturbed him.

“You’re probably wondering where Barry is. Funny story, I found out he was skimming. Which is, hmm… not great for him. But then you called him and he told me all about you and I knew I just had to meet you!”

The door opened and a tall man got out of the car, holding out his hand for Chris to shake.

“I’m the big boss of this little operation. Most of my workers call me Mr Ghost.”

Chris shook his hand, wondering why such an important man would want to talk to him.

“I’ve got a little proposition for you, Chewie. You go to school with a girl called Sophia Perez, right? About five nine, dark hair, quite pretty in a nerdy way? I want you to keep an eye on her for me. It wouldn’t take much effort, I just need to know who she’s talking to and when she’s not in class. Let me… give you my… number…”

As he spoke he pulled out a business card and a shiny gold pen from the pockets of his business suit. He wrote the number down and held the card out. Chris balked at taking it, putting his hands in his pockets.

“Look, Mr Ghost… I…I’m not sure about that… I mean… you’re kinda old and as far as I know she’s not 18 yet…” 

Mr Ghost’s face went blank for a second and then he laughed.

“It’s nothing like that! Hey you’re a funny guy.”

  
  


He put his right hand on Chewie’s shoulder, the band of the heavy ring he wore on his pinkie finger pressing into his shoulder as he gripped it. He used his left hand to gesticulate as he talked.

“Look. It doesn’t matter to you  _ why _ I want you to keep an eye on her. All that matters is that you get your fix, right?”

He waved his left hand at the car and the blonde bombshell got out again, carrying a small paper bag.

“I know you’re under a lot of pressure to perform, Chewie. Football scholarships are a hard thing to get, and even if you do get accepted there’s no guarantee that you can keep it if you don’t keep kicking ass on the field… and let’s be brutally honest, you’re not getting into college on your math skills!”

He laughed and clapped his hand on Chris’ shoulder again.

“You should also know that… well… the steroids you’ve been getting can be detected. There’s a brand new test that they’re going to be using, and you’re going to light up like a christmas tree.” 

Chris gasped - he was  so screwed.

“Don’t panic just yet, my boy. It just so happens that I, well… have a little pharmaceutical business myself. Just one aspect of my enterprise, nothing to worry about. The boys in the lab have… developed… a new kind of booster. We call it Afterburn.”

The bombshell dove into the bag and held up a vial of clear liquid.

“It hasn’t really completed human trials yet, just fyi, but what it is… is safe for humans. And completely undetectable within twenty minutes. So as long as you don’t shoot up right before the test you’ll be fine.”

He took the bottle from the bombshell and held it out to Chris, his right hand never leaving the footballer’s shoulder. 

 

Chris reluctantly took it and Mr Ghost gripped his shoulder even tighter.

“Attaboy! Now this stuff is a little different from what you’re used to. You only need a couple of mils, and it’ll boost you for at least a week. Don’t use too much! You’ll burn too hot and people will get suspicious.”

He finally let Chris go and stepped back.

“In return for your reports I’ll keep you supplied with After Burn and cash. I foresee a very profitable future for you, Chewie. And don’t forget to let me know anything unusual about Sophia Perez.”

Mr Ghost gave him a wave and got back in the car - the bombshell winked at Chris and then hurried after him. The expensive sports car grumbled to life and charged out of the area, leaving Chris standing there holding a business card and a bottle of strange experimental liquid.

 

*

 

It was pretty easy to keep tabs on Sophia. She was in almost all of his classes and she was a lot taller than the other girls so he could usually spot her in the hallways. She spent a lot of time with some nerdy kid he’d never seen before, the two of them talking quietly together for long periods of time. He was able to learn the nerdy boy’s name was Peter, and he wasted no time in contacting Mr Ghost about it. Mr Ghost was very interested in Peter and asked Chris if he could keep an eye on both of them. Chris had no grounds to refuse - he’d taken the first dose of Afterburn the day after he’d received it and had felt more powerful than he’d ever been before. His coach had complimented him on his improved performance and told him that whatever he had changed in his routine that he should keep it up. 

 

Three times a week Sophia and Peter went together to a room in the gym that Chris had never seen before: the sign on the door read ‘dance classroom’ but he was sure that last semester the room in question had been storage. He was never sure what went on in there, but from what he could gather from listening through the door it involved a lot of grunting and a woman’s voice yelling at them in Russian. People he’d never seen before sometimes left the room in tears, clutching their shoes as the Russian followed them out the door - whatever was going on in there was intense. 

 

The footballer finally dared to peek in after one such fleeing, taking in the polished wooden floors and the wall of mirrors. Classical music cascaded from speakers and there was the sound of lots of movement - and then suddenly his view was cut off by a strange woman appearing at the door and glowering at him. She was wearing a pair of daisy-yellow leggings and a grey body-suit, and she crossed her arms. He gaped at her and she pushed the door open. The sound of movement behind her never faltered. 

“Who are you?”   
She was the owner of the loud Russian words, that was for sure.    
“Uh… Chris Hewitt, ma’am…”

She looked him up and down.

“You’re a footballer. I can tell. You have strength but no grace. You’re curious about the class, yes?”   
She turned and walked back into the room and he compulsively followed her in. The room was bigger than he was expecting and it smelt of sweat and wood polish. The wall of mirrors was disconcerting and he watched himself move for a little while until his eye was drawn to the rest of the room. A group of people were practising some kind of move over and over - Chris was able to spot Sophia and Peter in the middle of the group - and he was a little disturbed by how easily they ignored him and moved perfectly together. 

“This is my dance class. It’s extra-curricular. You will join us. Dancing is good for football, you’ll have more flexibility and be less likely to hurt yourself.”

She turned and walked over to a small bench, returning quickly with a couple of pieces of paper.

“This is the information you’ll need. Permission form, a small history of dance. Class runs three times a week, if you join you must come at least once. I also run private lessons for a fee.” 

The papers were shoved into Chris’ hands and he was ushered out, the door closing behind him. He looked down at them and frowned. How the hell had that teacher just railroaded him into joining a dance class?

 

*

 

Despite swearing to himself that he wasn’t going to go, Chris ended up back in the class before everyone else arrived feeling awkward. The teacher (introduced to him as Naomi Rostov) spent twenty minutes showing him moves and telling him he had a lot of work to do to catch up. People started trickling in and finally Naomi started the class, telling them they’d be starting pair-work the next few sessions before leading them through a warmup. Sophia and Peter ended up directly in front of Chris, since they were both relatively tall, and they spent the lesson whispering to each other. It sounded like they were making plans in between jokes, but Chris was failing at his job as a spy and couldn’t hear what they were planning on doing. 

 

When the lesson finally ended he stumbled out: he hadn’t been so exhausted in years. To his never ending surprise Peter walked out beside him and clapped him on the shoulder. 

“Don’t worry about it, man. After my first session I literally couldn’t walk.”   
Sophia walked up beside him. Chris hardly dared to breathe.   
“It’s true. I had to carry him.”

She offered the footballer a shy smile. It was the first time he’d actually seen her smile - it made a surprising difference and was moderately enchanting. He blinked at her, unable to think of anything to say. 

 

Luckily it seemed like Peter was more than capable of carrying on a conversation by himself.

“It’s good to see some other dudes in the class, the gender ratio is kinda skewed right now the way it is. Ms Rostov was pretty shitty about the whole thing, she did this whole rant about how men shouldn’t be afraid to dance since it made them so much stronger and more flexible than any other sport. I honestly thought she was going to have a stroke. Are you going to be able to handle doing football and dance? Do you even want to? It’s probably fine, right, to be doing other physical classes other than football? Man you don’t talk much do you…”   
By this time they’d reached the lockers and Sophia piped up.

“He probably knows he can’t get a word in, do you ever stop?”

She and Peter proceeded to joke back and forth, and Chris stood there in the middle feeling like a dumb idiot. 

 

He hated feeling that way and so finally opened his mouth to excuse himself.

“I’m gonna go…”

The two of them stopped dead and seemed to remember he was there too. Peter was first of the mark.

“Yeah of course, we’ll see you tomorrow in math.”

The big footballer grabbed his bag and walked away - he hadn’t learned anything useful and he’d screwed up his workout schedule to boot. He got to his car and checked his phone - a few facebook notifications, some twitter stuff… no actual messages. It seemed like Mr Ghost didn’t feel strongly either way, and Chris drove home wondering if what he was doing was right. 

 

*

 

It was a surprise when Chris came into math a little bit later than he’d intended the next morning (he’d had trouble getting out of bed - his legs refused to work) and found that the only open seat was in front of Sophia. He slid into it and ducked his head: he was in the second row, right on the teacher’s radar. This was bad. He glanced at his phone, seeing there was still no word from Mr Ghost on his behaviour, and sighed. 

 

He managed to keep his head down for the majority of the lesson, avoiding the teacher’s gaze and managing to keep up the facade of doing work he didn’t understand. There was ten minutes left on the clock when his worst nightmare came true, and the teacher focused in on him and asked him a direct question.

“Chris… solve the equation on the board.”

He squinted at it: it looked complicated, with small numbers sitting to the top right of other numbers. He started panicking and stalled.

“Uhh… um…”

The teacher’s face went from vaguely optimistic to hopeless in a few seconds and was about to move on when a voice from behind him whispered “x = 4”.

Taking it on faith, Chris repeated the answer.

“X equals 4?” 

The teacher’s face changed back from hopeless to surprised, to pleased and she nodded before she moved on. Chris relaxed slightly and went back to doodling, reminding himself to thank Sophia. The bell rang and he went to stand outside the door, waiting for the dark-haired girl. 

 

She left the room shouldering her bag and he joined her.

“Thank you for that.”   
She glanced at him (she looked tired, he noticed) and gave a half smile that he swore he’d seen somewhere before on tv.

“You’re welcome. Everyone gets one freebie but if you want more of my help it’ll cost you.”   
He returned the smile.

“I think it’s a bit beyond me. I have what I’m good at, which is football, and I have what I’m not good at, which is pretty much everything else.”

She adjusted her bag before she replied.

“Well that may be so, but I bet you thought you weren’t good at dancing before yesterday and you were good for your first time.”

Chris swung his head around checking that no one heard her say it.

“Hey, uh… my friends don’t know I’m looking at taking that class, so try to keep it quiet ok?”

Sophia shrugged.

“Ok. I’ll see you around.”   
She walked quicker to catch up with Peter, and Chris stopped and stood by a wall for a few minutes doing some hard thinking for the first time in years.


	14. Emergency Substitutions

Tony should not have let his daughter go to New York unsupervised. The worry was slowly driving him insane: he was living for her sparse texts, and the singular phone call she'd made that first night had done nothing to allay his fears. Her Instagram was full of pictures of her and that Parker boy enjoying themselves far too much - sightseeing and lots of restaurants. Tony grumbled as he stared at his screen, hearing Pepper sigh from the other side of the bed. 

“Tony would you please turn that off? I have a meeting first thing tomorrow.”

When he didn't comply she rolled over and propped herself up to look at what he was fixated on.

“Oh for…”

She reached over him to take the phone and flick the screen off. She dropped it on his chest and her arm withdrew into the darkness and Tony grumbled some more.

“Tony she’s fine, Peter is taking good care of her and she’ll be home in two days. You encouraged her to go to that event, remember?”

He had indeed encouraged her to go to a ‘young people in technology’ summit in New York, as an ambassador sponsored by her school. Peter had somehow gained access to the program too, probably because his aunt was still living in Queens, and it meant the school didn’t have to pay for a hotel. 

“I wouldn’t have agreed to pay for the flights if I’d known Parker was going too.”   
He felt Pepper sit up, and could feel the long hard look she was giving him.

“Tony. For fuck’s sake. He’s her teammate, her friend! He has no interest in her sexually - ” 

Tony made an inhuman noise of outrage but Pepper just bulled past him “ - and in any case his aunt is under the same roof and knows she’s under eighteen!”

Pepper fell back onto the mattress but immediately sat up again to continue to berate him.

“And for that matter why don’t you trust Sophia? She’s not an idiot. I mean she is  _ your _ daughter but thankfully she seems to take after her mother in that regard!”

Pepper’s body hit the mattress hard again and she rolled over with an angry sigh. Tony, suitably chastened, put his phone back on the nightstand and crossed his arms to frown at the darkness. He  _ probably  _ could trust Sophia not to be stupid about a boy, but they were both so very young and Parker  _ was _ a college-age boy… and Tony knew from experience what a college-age boy could get up to with a pretty girl. He shook his head and tried to stop worrying. It was probably fine.

 

*

 

The L.A sun was streaming in the windows when Tony woke up. The display nearby read 10:32am and Pepper was long gone - a small smear of pastel pink lipstick on the pillow next to his head told him that she’d kissed him goodbye despite the argument during the night. Thinking about that made him roll over and lunge for his phone - maybe Sophia had messaged him! To his disappointment he only saw email notifications and rolled out of bed to get some food to soothe his ruffled feathers. 

 

As he consumed his body weight in scrambled eggs (despite having asked Jarvis for an omelette - it seemed like the AI was missing Sophia too) he kept one eye on his daughter’s Instagram feed. He was surprised at how much he missed her. She made the big empty house feel a lot more cosy: even when she was at school or working in the lab at Stark Industries he was comforted by the knowledge that she would be around and safe. Another forkful of egg down, he sighed and backed out of Instagram and was surprised when the phone rang in his hand. Sophia! Tony gleefully answered.

“Sophia! Hey how’s it going kiddo? Are you enjoying New York?”   
_ “Hey dad… yeah I’m having a great time here… Director Fury called, there’s an Avengers emergency he needs help with, some kind of tech malfunction, but I’m stuck in New York without the Iron Maiden suit. Is there any way you could… help?” _

Tony thoughtfully took another forkful of egg as he considered.

“I don’t have a suit… I can probably make something work?”   
_ “That’s great. There’s a rogue mech loose in a military base outside of L.A., the Avengers are trying to keep it contained but they need someone with advanced mechanical experience to disable it.” _

Tony snorted. “And that was you?”   
_ “Fuck you old man. Fury’ll send you the coordinates for the base, he’s not pleased about bringing you in but this  _ _ is _ _ a pretty big emergency and I’m unavailable. Seeya!” _

Sophia hung up before he could say goodbye and Tony sulked his way towards her room.

 

The portion of sliding wall that hid the Iron Maiden suit had been covered with an large obnoxious and, in Tony’s opinion, a little too-risqué poster of the Avengers. He touched the lever and watched the wall slide away to reveal the sleek black suit. It was only then that he realised a major problem - the Iron Maiden was approximately five inches shorter than he was in his bare feet, give or take an inch for the boosters in the boots. 

“Shit.”   
He watched it open automatically in preparation for him to step into it and then cast his eyes around the room.    
“Jarvis?”   
The AI responded immediately.

_ “Yes, sir?” _

“The Iron Maiden… do you think it’ll stretch to fit me?”   
_ “Going somewhere special, sir?” _

“None of your sass.”   
_ “My apologies, Mr Stark. I believe the Iron Maiden suit will stand to adjust to your, uh… larger physique, although I doubt Miss Sophia will be pleased about you stretching it out.” _

“She knows. She suggested it.”

Tony turned around and stepped backwards towards the suit. It tried to envelop him and there was a small noisy alarm that was quickly cut off. The metal of the suit groaned as it adjusted to fit him, pneumatics whirring as plates were adjusted and a few pops as the mechanical joints were focused into new points of strain. The familiar helmet closed around his face and the interface lit up - it was different from what he’d been used to as Iron Man, a bluey-green hue with all the information on the wrong sides. 

“Well that’s just a pain…”

A small female voice chirped at him.

_ “Good morning Mr Stark! I’m Athena! I take it you’ll be running the Iron Maiden ops today?” _

“Hiya. Sophia called, we’ve got a mission.”

_ “Coolio! If you’ll just wait a few seconds I can calibrate the power output of the suit to your increased weight… just so you know the suit is under a bit of unexpected stress because of the size difference so the bullet-stopping capability isn’t as complete as it could be. So try not to get hit ok?” _

Tony rolled his eyes - what was with these sassy AI?

“I’ll try.”   
He watched as the hidden door slid closed and looked up to see the small custom panel in the roof roll back to show the sky.

_ “Ready to launch, Mr Stark?” _

“Yep. Go for it.”   
_ “Ok. Launching in three… two… one…” _

The tiny custom-built launch cannon dropped him sickeningly a few inches before firing him into the air. He couldn’t help the scream that came out from the experience - he’d never been launched like that before - and engaged the thrusters probably a little harder than he should have in his panic, shooting off across the sky.

 

It was like riding a bike. True, in that example the bike was a six year old girl’s bright pink thing covered in fake flowers but it did the job and Tony started to remember why he'd built the suits in the first place. Athena piping up interrupted his musings.

_ “Mr Stark, Sophia sent me the coordinates she got from Director Fury. I’ve made a flight path for you.” _

He didn’t reply but turned to follow the graceful arc plotted onto his HUD and put on a burst of speed. The base wasn't one he was familiar with: from what little information Athena could find it was apparently a classified weapons testing facility - although there were a lot of mutterings about it housing aliens in the many conspiracy theory forums. If only these people knew. A voice that didn't belong to the borrowed AI clicked on inside the helmet.

_ “This is Cap calling Iron Maiden… Sophia, what's your ETA?” _

Tony smirked. Apparently Fury hadn't told the rest of the team that it was him.

“Heya Cap, how’ve you been? Sophia can't come out to play today, she didn't eat her veggies.”

_ “Tony??” _

“That's me. Sophia’s in New York with the Parker boy and couldn't get back in time to help out so I reluctantly agreed to step in.”

Hawkeye’s voice joined the chatter.

_ “I didn't know you'd made another suit.” _

“I, uh… haven't. I'm borrowing Sophia’s. No biggie. What do you need to me to do?”

There was silence on the line and he could feel the judgement.

“You guys needed a tech expert and you've got one, what's the problem?”

Hawkeye piped up again.

_ “No I think we were all just imagining you trying to put the suit on.” _

Cap was silent and Tony could just imagine him standing there frowning at the ground.

 

He spotted the team on the display and went in for the landing. He came in a little too fast: he slammed down into the mud and slid a little bit as he was splattered to the knee with muck. Quickly brushing off the embarrassment he unclipped the faceplate and saw the other Avengers staring at him.

“What?”   
“You, uh… have a few gaps there Tony.”

Hawkeye poked a finger into the suit and Tony felt him pressing into his body.

“Hey hands off, Barton. I’m only here because you guys can’t work out how to disable a simple mech, as a favor to my daughter.”

Cap readjusted his shield. “And we appreciate it, Tony. So I’d like to get on with the job before more people get hurt.”

The tall blonde man outlined the plan - the ground team would distract the mech, Tony would use the Iron Maiden’s advanced cloaking system to get close to it and try to disable it. Tony snapped the faceplate back into place and grumbled something about EMP being a better idea as he headed into the sky.

 

*

 

The takedown was even easier than he expected. Tony hovered above and tossed the handful of cords he’d pulled carelessly over his shoulder. It had almost been a letdown, how easily the mech collapsed once he’d pulled out the guts of it - and Tony found he was wishing for more. 

_ “Hey good job Tony! Alright, looks like we’re all done here.” _

Tony scanned the area - Cap was regrouping with the others from the other side. Barton was picking up his arrows grumbling something about a waste of time and Natasha was nowhere to be seen. 

“Alright I'm sure you guys can handle the clean up, right? I'm going to head home, I think I left half a cup of coffee on the bench.”

He saw Cap look up at him.

_ “Thanks Tony, I know it feels weird coming back after a break but we really appreciate it.” _

Tony gave a cheeky wave and put on a burst of speed - heading for home. The short flight back was full of heavy consideration, and the Iron Maiden suit was quickly returned to its hidden area. He watched as the suit released the overstretched pneumatic joints with a hiss and the whole apparatus shuddered as it returned to normal size. The wall slid closed and the ambient light behind it went off, and Tony stood there staring at his own picture on the garish poster that hid the join. 

 

He was still standing there staring an hour later when Pepper came home. 

“Tony?”   
Her voice echoed up the stairs and he stirred slightly. Her high heels clicked on the stairs as she climbed them, and she came down the hallway. There was a sudden flash of guilt - the guilt of a dad caught in his kid’s room with no good reason, an invasion of privacy - and he tried to leave it before she could find him there but it was too late.

“Tony what are you doing?”   
She put her hands on her hips and frowned at him, but her expression was soft.

“I, uh… there was…”

He looked around the room and then shrugged helplessly. Pepper took a few steps into the room and hugged him. 

“I know you miss Sophia. I miss her too.”

She took his head between her hands: in her towering stilettos she was the same height as Tony and he found that very appealing. She kept looking at him, a small smile on her lips.

“I do miss her… but…”

He put his hands on her waist.

“... there are things I miss doing that I can’t feel comfortable doing while she’s in the house.”

Pepper got his meaning immediately.

 

*

 

Despite the extremely rigorous exercise regime and electrolyte loss Tony stood awake looking out at the ocean. It was one of the many things he loved about the house: the fact that he could see the ocean from almost every room. There was a spectacular view he particularly enjoyed from the floor of one of the toilets at dawn but he hadn’t had a chance to watch it for a while. It'd been hard, he admitted to himself, to be on the outside of the hero world looking in while Sophia got to play with all the toys - and he was privately a little jealous of how popular the Iron Maiden was when good publicity had always been so difficult for him. 

“Jarvis are you awake?”

It had been a little dance they'd done ever since Tony was little.

_ “For you sir? Always.” _

Tony was quiet as he tried to find the right words.

“Do you think Pepper would… be upset if I made a new suit and maybe rejoined the Avengers?”

The AI considered his words.

_ “I honestly couldn't say, sir. Miss Potts has some peculiar triggers. She seems fine with letting Miss Sophia go on missions but then, I remember the fuss she raised before you proved you'd destroyed all your suits… I believe, sir, that the most direct way would simply be to ask her.” _

Tony absorbed his words - he was right, damn him, but that hadn't been what Tony had wanted from the AI. 

“What about Sophia? Do you think she'd be cool with being on a team with her old man?”

_ “Again, hard to say sir. I'm brilliant but predicting human psychology is beyond me. I'm sorry sir but I'm not a mind-reader.” _

Tony sighed and turned back to the window. He needed to think. 

 

His tools were still right where he’d left them. It’s not like he’d really been expecting them to go walkabout but seeing them there covered in a dusty sheet was pretty eerie. The whole workshop was kind of creepy - only ambient lighting, all the furniture shrouded in sheets, and the lack of machine noise he’d been half-expecting. Tony removed a few sheets, running his hand over the tools and getting a small shiver of familiarity. So many hours he’d spent, using those to craft something beautiful. It would be so easy to just… whip a suit up. Just in case of emergency, he reasoned. He couldn’t wear the Iron Maiden again without breaking it; and in any case, the stretched pneumatics and gaps between plates meant that the ballistic protection was less than what he’d get from wearing a bulletproof vest. It was only sensible to have something prepared just in case there was an emergency.

 

The Iron Man suit came together in short order. Despite the months of inactivity in the space, Tony’s hands still knew precisely what to do. Bolts slid into place and were tightened. Metal plates - fabricated months ago and then abandoned - were put in place. Electronics were threaded through the titanium exoskeleton. It was probably the quickest build he’d ever done, and when the new Iron Man suit was finished he sat back and looked at it. 

_ “It looks wonderful, sir.” _

Jarvis’ voice startled him. He cleared his throat.

“I thought you’d gone into your downtime.”   
_ “I couldn’t leave you up alone, sir. I can go into downtime whenever.” _

Tony checked his reflection in the red shine of the metal and then looked around the workshop. His fingers itched to improve the suit he’d just assembled, to add new features and refine others. He turned and straightened his tools, replacing the sheets and activating the suit. It unlocked and slid apart as though beckoning him.

“Well… I really should test it, I guess… make sure I haven’t crossed some wires…”

Tony stepped into the suit.


	15. Divine Intervention

Everything was wrong. Sounds were blaring left and right in her helmet but there were no displays - the whole helmet was dark barring random glitches of light. There was a voice - it sounded like Peter - somewhere far away, but Sophia found it hard to concentrate on any of that over the alarms. It was vitally important, for some reason, that she get up and move away but something was stopping her. Her right reached over - not entirely of her own control but hey at least something was moving - and felt around for it. Her quest was successful: an enormous hard substance trapping her from the shoulders down. She tried to find an edge. 

 

As though it had been waiting for her to realise she was trapped under something big and heavy (concrete, perhaps) Sophia became aware of pressure on her whole body turning from discomfort into small spikes of pain. The armor was stopping her from being completely crushed but it was quietly failing as the minutes stretched by and Sophia tried to remember what had happened as she attempted to shift what felt like a goddamn building off of her.

 

The last thing she remembered clearly was racing Peter across the city in costume to relieve some stress and stopping for ice cream, causing a stir in the shop they dropped into. It was almost blank after that - she remembered sitting on a rooftop with Peter eating really good strawberry ice cream and teasing each other then just memory flashes: a loud roaring sound, someone screaming for help, the sound of flesh hitting flesh followed quickly by a heavy whoosh and a sickening crunching noise. The ice cream falling to the ground. Dropping over the edge of a building into a dark alleyway. A huge dark shape crouched over a prone human form. The head turning - focusing on the Iron Maiden - and another one of those roars shaking the ground. There was nothing after that, and Sophia tried to repress the nausea from the noise of the alarms and stuttering strobe light of the failed HUD; if she vomited now she’d probably choke to death on it. 

 

Over the disorienting blare of alarms and light she heard Peter’s voice on the secure broadcast channel in her helmet, calling out for help from the older Avengers. Sophia tried to pull the screaming helmet off her head but the pneumatics were jammed closed and she gasped as panic flared, clawing and even punching at the clasp to try and escape. It suddenly gave and the metal helmet fell away, giving Sophia a perfect clear view of the sky. It was so quiet. She sighed and closed her eyes, only to have them fly open again when she heard Peter yell.

“Could really use some help right about now!”

That roar shook dust and chunks from the concrete slab imprisoning Sophia and she struggled as there was another resounding thunk and the unmistakeable sound of Peter hitting a wall, hard. She had to help.

 

There was another odd whooshing noise followed by a loud boom and the ground shook, this time bigger chunks coming loose and hitting her in the face hard, cutting her cheek. Unable to tell what was happening, Sophia tried to figure out what was happening as there were more thwacking noises followed by roars. She heard Peter again.

“I got this! Get Sophia!”

There were hurried footsteps in her vicinity and she suddenly came face to face with an upside-down Thor Odinson. 

“Young Stark! Are you injured?”   
“No I’m just lying under several hundred pounds of concrete for fun.”

Thor laughed heartily - the bastard - and started scouting out the best place to lift the concrete from.

“Can you move from under your fun if I lift it up, young Stark?”

She grimaced and waved her free arm.

“I don’t know. This bit works though.”

Thor didn’t respond, instead digging in his fingers and lifting the concrete slab up holding it with unreasonable ease. The pressure on her body was gone in an instant and she was able to scrape herself backwards out from under it with her good arm. Thor gently placed the concrete down and took a step back, turning his head as the sounds of fighting nearby got louder.

“Allow me to help, man of spiders!”

Thor left Sophia’s view and she sighed.

“Athena… run injury scan and suit diagnostics.”   
The girl propped herself up against a nearby wall while she waited for the AI to complete its scanning, picking up her helmet from nearby and turning to look at the face of it. It was buckled inward, cracked all the way through - explaining why she’d had no HUD - with what looked like a piece of concrete embedded in it. It felt like a miracle that she’d survived such a bad hit.

 

Athena’s voice came from the helmet speakers.    
_ “You have some major bruising on your ribs, a few cuts and bruises on your face but you’re otherwise fine. The suit though…. it’s, in a word, totalled.” _

“Hmm. Bummer.”

She looked up, helmet settling into her lap, and finally saw what she’d been fighting. Peter had managed to trap it in webbing and Thor was happily bouncing Mjolnir off it. It looked like a person, if that person had over-inflated balloons for arms and legs, and it didn’t seem at all bothered by the powerful hammer contacting its skin as it struggled against the web. Thor finally gave it a good blow to the head and it stopped struggling, and Peter appeared next to Sophia pulling off his hood.   
“You’re alive! When it hit you right in the face and you hit that building I thought you were gone for sure!”

Sophia held up the cracked and dented helmet for him to see.

“I was apparently very lucky.”

He grabbed it and looked panicked, failing to articulate beyond a few stuttered words, and finally he hugged her and apologised for not looking after her better. He retreated when she gasped from the pressure on her bruised ribs and stood looking ashamed.

 

Thor joined them and held his hand out to Sophia to pull her up.

“Most enjoyable! Do you require transport home, young Stark? Your suit appears damaged.”

She sighed.   
“I think so. The buckling of the plates has severed most of the servo lines and power conduits so I can’t really move too quickly.”

Thor clapped a hand on her shoulder, almost knocking her over again.

“Then if the man of spiders will keep an eye on our large friend here until Shield dispatch a team to retrieve him, I will take you home.”

He flung out his arm and Sophia retrieved her helmet, allowing the god to pull her close to his body as the other hand swung his hammer with increasing speed. 

“Close your eyes, young Stark, and try not to vomit on me.”

 

*

 

Thor’s method of flight was very different to her suit. The Iron Maiden was an elegant, finely balanced instrument - Thor’s method of literally throwing Mjolnir as hard as he could in a chosen direction and hanging on tight was pants-shittingly terrifying. They landed in the garden, on a nice soft piece of lawn, and to Sophia’s credit she didn’t fall over. But she did droop a little and Thor held her up.   
“Young Stark?”

She opened her eyes and dropped the helmet, looking up at the house as she fought nausea again. It was dark - Tony and Pepper were at a charity fundraiser - but as she staggered towards the glass doors Jarvis lit the house for her.

_ “Miss Sophia? Do you require medical assistance? Do you want me to call your father??” _

She shook her head, unable to vocalise, and staggered as her leg servos juddered and randomly locked and released without prompting. She needed to get out of the suit. 

 

There was always a screwdriver lurking in the kitchen drawers and she fumbled around for it. Her right arm was the only one working - the left hung uselessly, crushed almost completely from shoulder-joint down and unable to move. That was her first job. She dug into the meat of the shoulder and wiggled the screwdriver around, trying to lever up the crumpled plate to access the frame. It took her a long time to get anywhere with it and she hunched miserably on the bench as it started leaking hydraulics fluid down her arm. She tried to ignore the hot tears running down her face and stinging the big cut on her cheek. 

“Young Stark… you require help.”

She hadn't seen Thor come up to her but he put her helmet on the bench, took the screwdriver from her and eagerly probed the armor with it.

“That was a mighty battle. The man of spiders did the right thing calling for help.”

Sophia didn’t look at him, more tears running down her face. 

 

Thor managed to get his fingers under the plate he was working on and wrenched it off, exposing the skeleton. He happily pulled the rest of the plates off her arm and handed back the screwdriver, pausing when he saw her face.

“Young Stark…! What's wrong?”

She wiped at the tears with her free hand.

“I failed my first battle against something non-human. I was down and out with one blow. I don't deserve to be part of the Avengers if I'm this weak.”

Thor grabbed her by the shoulders.

“You did a magnificent job! That beast tore through Peter’s webbing like it was nothing and even resisted Mjolnir. Even if you feel as though you did nothing you didn't run away. You stood your ground and engaged in combat with something four times your size, something not many would be brave enough to do! That tells me you have a bold warriors heart.”

He grinned at her.

“With a little training in that armor you could take on anything and win.”

She broke into a weak smile and then let it drop as it pulled at her cut.

“Thanks Thor. I'm just overwhelmed right now picking a college and juggling final exams preparation and my duties as the Iron Maiden and this was just too much.”

Thor nodded sagely - even though she was pretty sure he didn't know what finals were - and patted her shoulder. 

“I know nothing about good Midgard schools, but Jane is proud of where she teaches - Culver University. Perhaps you would like to discuss it with her sometime? We're in L.A for a few weeks while she gives some guest lectures. She's a very intelligent woman.”

Sophia looked at him and nodded. He nodded back and got to working on the rest of the armor plates keeping up his amiable chatting.

“Don’t worry about your battle young Stark. I didn't do nearly so well as you in my first fight with the Frost Giants - I ran. And I'd been trained to fight since I could walk! You should consider training with Asgardians, you'd be helped by the finest fighters in the universe.” 

Sophia started working on getting her left arm out of the armor before she replied.

“I think that might be a good idea. Iron Maiden was never meant to be around for this long, and wasn't meant to take on big freaky monsters. I made the suit to help me take on the leader of a drug ring who killed my mum. Never really needed to know how to fight except avoid being shot.”

Thor grinned up at her as he pulled plates off her legs.

“Then you should learn! I’ll organise a training sojourn for you after these troublesome finals of yours.”

She finally managed to free her arm and sighed as the shoulder joint relaxed, spraying dark hydraulics fluid on the floor. Her left arm was very sore but she flexed it anyway a few times and then got to work on the equally-destroyed chestplate. 

 

Together they managed to get the suit off - leaving it scattered around the kitchen - and Sophia gingerly probed her bruised ribs. They weren't too bad: the suit had sacrificed itself to protect her and it had done a good job. Thor patted her on the shoulder.

“Bedtime, young Stark. I need to make a battle report to Shield, telling them of your prowess, and you need rest to heal.”

Sophia nodded, heading for the stairs but pausing with her foot on the lowest step.

“If they figure out what that creature was, will you tell me?”

Thor nodded.

“I will endeavor to find out for you. Sleep well.”

She smiled and waved, climbing the stairs with a kind of bone-deep ache from the neck down. The teenager managed to scrape herself into the shower, washing off the dark red-brown hydraulics fluid and trying to use the hot water to soothe her bruised ribs. Sophia pulled on some clean clothes and crawled painfully into bed. 

 

*

 

The house was dark when Tony and Pepper pulled up to it sometime after 2am. It looked peaceful - it was a clear night, with a thin moon. Tony parked in the driveway, already thinking about going to bed, and looked over at Pepper: she was asleep, head propped up on her hand and her soft hair falling free from its complicated updo. Tony smiled and reached over to tuck some of it behind her ear.

“Pepper… we’re home…”

She stirred and looked up at the house.    
“Good…”

Tony got out and went around the car, opening the door for his fiancee and helping her out. She headed for the front door as Tony paused to check what looked like a small scrape along the side of the car: he crouched down and ran his fingers along it hoping he was wrong, and sighing in relief when the ‘scrape’ flaked off and proved that the paint underneath was untouched and perfect. He licked his thumb and cleaned the side of the car, wondering if he would be able to pay Sophia to come and wash it for him when he heard Pepper hurry back along the path and stood up to see her face drained of colour.

“Tony… it’s Sophia…”

The man’s stomach dropped suddenly and he took off for the house: a hundred terrible thoughts all hit him at once. 

 

He slammed through the front door and skidded a little, eyes searching the house for clues. Pepper had hurried after him and pointed towards the kitchen and Tony hurried that way. He stopped dead and viewed the carnage in front of him panic mounting. The Iron Maiden was totalled, plates crushed and bent. Red-brown fluid was splattered across the floor drying in nasty-looking pools, dark against the white marble of the floor. With shaking hands Tony picked up the helmet and turned so it caught the light: a large shard of concrete split the front, the bowing of the face unmistakable. He carefully put the helmet back and took a deep breath, willing himself to calm down. Just because her armor was wrecked and blood had sprayed across the kitchen floor didn’t mean anything terrible had happened.    
“Jarvis…??”

_ “Yes, Mr Stark?” _

“Is Sophia here?”   
_ “She is, sir. She’s upstairs.” _

Tony spun on his heel and tore up the stairs. He heard Jarvis as he ran.

_ “Sir she’s asleep, she had a very bad evening and I don’t think you should wake her up!” _

Tony ignored him and made it to Sophia’s room, pausing to catch his breath before he eased the door open as gently as he could.

 

Sure enough Sophia was lying there breathing gently. Part of Tony’s body, a part he didn’t know he had, relaxed a bit and he picked his way through the teen’s bedroom to make sure she was actually ok. He eased onto the edge of the bed and watched her sleep for a little while.

“Jarvis?”   
He kept his voice barely audible and the house AI matched him.

_ “Yes, sir?” _

“Scan her for injuries, would you?”

The AI was quiet for a moment.

_ “Bruised ribs and a moderately deep cut on the cheek. As long as she gets plenty of rest she’ll be just fine, sir.” _

Tony let out a long breath and tucked the covers in around his daughter more. He shouldn’t have gone out, he should have stayed and been there to help her. Tony got up and left, closing the door after him, and covered his eyes for a second. Pepper took his free hand and kissed his cheek.

“She’s ok?”

He nodded.

“Bruised ribs and a cut cheek. She was meant to be out with spider-boy, how could he let this happen?”   
Pepper tugged almost petulantly at his hand.   
“I’m sure there’s a good explanation. Come on, you can yell at her in the morning for leaving such a terrifying mess in the kitchen.”

He grumbled but let himself be led to their bedroom, idly wondering when he’d become such a dad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise Iron Maiden chapter! Haha writers' block has been majorly kicking my ass and I haven't been able to bring myself to write.... well... anything. But here it is! I think I got my groove back! Hooray!


	16. Finals Are a Slow Death

Finals had been absolutely brutal. Sophia had seesawed between stress-induced hyperactivity and paralysing despair, pushing her way through and taking it one day at a time as Tony and Pepper did their best to talk her down from the ceiling and keep her calm, hydrated and fed. Tony picked Sophia up after her final exam a few streets away from the school, and she threw herself gratefully into the passenger seat. 

“So how’d it go, kiddo?”   
Tony pulled smoothly out into traffic as Sophia gave a deep sigh and fixed a baleful eye on her father. 

“It went, and that’s the important thing. I don’t even really remember most of it, I hope I wrote in English.”   
Tony chuckled.

“I’m sure you managed a few sentences. You hungry?”   
“Not really. I just want to go home and sleep.”

“Sure thing, kiddo. Pepper wants to take you out to dinner, but if you want to go home and take a nap first we can totally do that.”

Sophia nodded and let her head fall backwards onto the headrest of the seat. She was tempted to go to sleep but didn’t, letting her eyes unfocus out the window and her mind drain of thought. She wondered if her mother would have been proud of her and decided that yes, she would have - not only for clawing her way back up to the high standard of grades Sophia knew she was capable of, but hopefully for avenging her death and reconciling with Tony - and let herself smile away until they pulled up to the house.

 

Pepper was waiting in the foyer and wrapped Sophia in a tight hug. 

“I’m so proud of you!”   
Sophia let out a sigh.   
“Thank you…”

Pepper let her go and Tony took her place, hugging his daughter.

“My turn!”   
“Too tight…!”

“It’s just me expressing how proud we are of you for getting through such a tough time.”

Tony set her back on her feet and smiled.    
“If you wanna go take that nap now would be the time.”

Sophia nodded gratefully and, leaving her bag where she’d dropped it, left the foyer and trailed her way up the stairs. The teenager dropped face-first onto her bed, wiggling around until she could kick her shoes off. She freed her mouth so she could talk.

“Jarvis?”   
_ “Yes, miss Sophia?” _

“Can you please turn off the lights?”

_ “Of course.” _

The AI turned off the lights and turned up the window tint until there was barely any light left in the room.

“Thank you… can you also wake me up - gently - in a couple of hours?”   
_ “As you wish. My heartiest congratulations to you on finishing your exams.” _   
Sophia smiled into her pillow.   
“Thanks Jarvis.”   
_ “Sleep well, Sophia.” _

And she did. And it was glorious.

 

*

 

When Sophia groggily slumped downstairs a few hours later she was surprised to hear a gaggle of adult voices all raised in jubilance. There were a few she recognised - it was impossible to mistake Thor’s booming tone - and when she walked into the kitchen she was greeted by the cheers and whistles of the assembled Avengers. They were holding beers and there was a tray of snacks being molested on the bench. Tony met her at the foot of the stairs and put an arm around her shoulders, guiding her towards the group. Sophia gave the group a quizzical look.   
“You guys… didn’t have to throw me a party, I haven’t even graduated or anything I just finished my exams.”   
Peter appeared from behind the mass of muscle and handed her a beer.

“Any excuse, right?”   
Tony swiftly took the beer out of her hand.

“Noooo definitely not. You can party with alcohol when you’re 21.”   
Sophia shared an amused smile with Peter.

“Uh huh… sure dad, I’ll wait til I’m 21.”   
Tony made to question it but Pepper came through with another tray of snacks and the opportunity disappeared. 

 

Sophia melted away and attended to the snacks waiting on the bench, stuffing her face - after her need for sleep had been satisfied, food was the highest priority. A handful of fancy smoked salmon canapes clutched in her fingers, she turned to examine the other people in the kitchen. Steve was standing with Natasha, Bruce and Clint, the four of them sharing a laugh. Thor was animatedly talking to Peter and Pepper, who were both taking subtle steps back as the Asgardian delightedly mimed punching something. Tony had gone over to the window, where Nick Fury was admiring the view. Sophia stuffed the canapes into her mouth, grabbing a can of drink and chewing as she went to join Peter and Pepper listening to Thor. Thor himself beamed at the teenager.

“Young Stark! I was just regaling Pepper with the tale of your battle!”   
Sophia tried to speak but the salmon was fighting her and she nodded and kept chewing. 

“It was most exciting! I was glad to be able to be part of it!”

Peter frowned slightly.    
“Did Shield ever figure out what that thing was?”   
“Fury took it away for the science division to look at, you would have to ask him.”

Sophia glanced over to where her father and Fury stood together, discussing something quietly.    
  


Pepper took the chance to change the subject.   
“So you’re in town with Jane, is that right? Where is she this evening?”   
Thor grinned.   
“She’s giving an evening lecture and sends her apologies… and her congratulations on completing your examinations, young Stark.”

Still chewing, Sophia nodded again with a muffled “thank you” and quietly drifted towards where her dad and Fury were standing having what looked like a hushed argument. 

“She wants to go to college.”   
“We need her, Tony. Since you’re refusing to step up again, we need the specific expertise the suit brings to the team.”   
“Yeah… about that…”

Fury’s eye flicked to Sophia and Tony whipped around.    
“Sophia…”   
“Don’t stop on my account.”   
Tony rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly and mumbled something about it not being important. 

 

He wandered away and Sophia took his place.

“Director Fury…”

“Ms Perez. Congratulations on finishing your exams.”   
The use of her surname was a little jarring - particularly in light of Thor calling her ‘young Stark’ and everyone just going with it, including her - but she absorbed it and moved on.

“Thanks… Thor says that you got the science division to look at whatever that creature was I fought?”   
“Correct.”   
“Any word on exactly what it was?”   
Fury took a particularly vicious bite out of a mini quiche he’d been holding, giving himself time to think. His gaze never wavered while he chewed and Sophia found it a little disturbing but didn’t look away. Finally the man swallowed.

“They were able to determine it used to be a human male. They were unable to figure out exactly what happened to him, he has a chemical compound in him that they’ve never seen before so they’re running tests.”   
“They’ve still got him?”   
“Did you think we’d killed him or something? We’re hoping Bruce won’t lose it and ‘Go Green’ for a while, since we’re using the big guy’s containment.”

Sophia was quiet for a little while, thinking it over. 

“Have you gotten him to communicate?”   
“Nope, he’s non-verbal. We found a DNA match for him in the system - Logan Greer. No last known address, no next of kin listed. Looked like he’d been homeless for a long time.”   
Sophia nodded thoughtfully. Steve came over to talk to Fury, and Sophia took the chance to escape back to the tray of snacks.

 

Peter joined her there, taking a handful of crackers and slipping them into his pocket. He glanced at his friend, and his lips twisted into a smile.   
“I know that look… you’re thinking about doing something sneaky.”

“What? No... “

She looked around carefully and then leaned in.

“I need you to help me.”   
“Always.”   
She glanced around again and then headed for the door out to the yard, going over to the tall wall that separated the property from the edge of the cliff. Peter followed her out, eating crackers from his pockets, and Sophia glanced back at the house. The sea hit the cliff below them with a comforting regularity, and the wind was rushing out towards the horizon. Sophia turned to Peter.

“I need to break into Shield.”

Peter thoughtfully munched a cracker.

“And you want me to help you…”   
“I can’t trust anyone else right now.”

“Why?”   
“They’ll try and stop me. The others seem to think Shield has the best capability to figure it out, but they’re not. I need data and they’ll never give it to me.” 

“What’s going on?”   
“I’m not sure, but I have a feeling that it involves the kingpin of that drug ring I took down. He’s behind this, I  _ know _ it.”

“Alright. What do you need me to do?”   
“I need you to come with me and distract everyone.”   
“How am I meant to do that?”   
“I don’t know, moon them or something - you’ll think of something before tomorrow, I know you will.”

Peter nodded and ate another pocket cracker. Sophia looked back out at the ocean and heard him go back inside, quickly getting lost in her own thoughts. Breaking into Shield wasn’t something she’d thought she’d need to do but here she was. It was the only way.

 

Tony came out to stand next to her - she didn’t see him, she was too busy thinking about how best to crack open Shield security - and cleared his throat when she didn’t acknowledge him. 

“Nice to have a breeze.”

Sophia glanced over at him and refocused on the horizon. As always, Tony kept talking.

“I know this wasn’t exactly what we’d planned to do this evening, but Peter told Thor that you’d finished your exams and that guy cannot resist making everything a party.”

“It’s fine, dad. It’s more than fine. What other teenager can say they’ve partied with the Avengers?”

He hugged her.   
“Come on inside when you’re ready, we’re ordering pizza - but don’t wait too long, between Thor and Cap there won’t be much left.”

Sophia nodded and waited until his footsteps told her he was gone from the terrace. She held up her phone.

“Athena.”

_ “Yeah boss?” _

“Go deep and pull everything you can on Logan Greer.”

 

*

 

The Avengers pizza party had been ridiculous. Halfway through the night Peter and Sophia had pulled on their respective masks, taking copious selfies with the adult Avengers. They got some fantastic shots: Thor eating pizza and drinking beer simultaneously with Steve looking disgusted next to him, a candid of Fury eating a piece of cake and entirely missing his mouth, Clint sitting on top of the refrigerator, a lovely shot of Natasha and Bruce competitively folding origami, Tony desperately trying to solicit someone to sing karaoke with him and everybody visibly avoiding eye contact. Peter uploaded all of them to Spidey’s official Instagram and the likes poured in. Sophia pulled her helmet off, dumping it on the kitchen counter and leaping over the couch to join Tony at the karaoke machine. 

 

Around 1am the Avengers started to trickle out, leaving Peter passed out on a couch with a blanket over him. Steve shook hands with Tony and Pepper and then corralled a rowdy Clint Natasha and Thor into the car. Bruce, who hadn’t touched a drop all evening, thanked his hosts and joined the others in the car - Director Fury had made his excuses and left early. Tony closed the door and then leaned against it, a little unsteady on his feet. His eyes fixed on Sophia and he launched himself at her with an unsettling squeak, hugging her tightly.    
“I’m just so proud of you.”

Sophia patted his arm gently and made awkward eye contact with Pepper, who looked torn between giggles and soft cooing over how cute it was.   
“Ok dad… it’s time for you to go to bed.”

Tony let her go and Pepper gently guided him upstairs. Sophia went back into the kitchen and started the long process of cleaning up after a group of drunk adults.

 

*

 

The timing of the night before had been perfect. Tony and Pepper were both too hungover to question Sophia being up at dawn, poking and prodding and forcing food and coffee into a drowsy Peter. It was her hope that the other Avengers - and the staff of the Shield helicarrier - would be equally as drowsy/hungover, although she knew the level of professionalism usually exhibited by Shield agents would make it unlikely. Once Peter was fully awake (or at least containing enough coffee to keep his eyes open) the two of them suited up and went out into the garden, and then Sophia discovered a problem with her plan. 

“Maybe you can piggyback me?”   
Sophia flipped up her visor to give him a scathing look.   
“I’m not that strong and neither is the suit.”

“Then you suggest something?”

“Hmm let me think.”   
She walked around her friend a few times.

“If you spin up a web, I should theoretically be able to take off, attach to it and lift you. Think you can hold on for that long?”

“I’m sure I can manage that, I’ll tell you if my arms are getting tired or I’m about to puke.”   
Sophia nodded, flipped down her visor and launched herself. Peter threw up a rope and she grabbed onto it, hearing her thrusters kick into a higher gear than normal under the added strain and the two of them shot off into the sunrise towards the low-hovering Shield helicarrier.

 

After getting clearance, she set Peter down next to what was jokingly referred to as the “Iron Family” landing pad - a small out of the way area that would allow any size of suit to be taken into temporary storage for ease of movement around the ship - and touched down herself onto the pad. The tiny arms activated and Sophia was able to step out of the suit, turning to watch it be packed away until she was ready to leave again. Peter was stretching out his arms and making little pained noises.

“We need to figure out something better.”   
“Yeah I’m thinking Spidey needs to a tech upgrade with boosters of his own.”   
“Are you serious right now because I would  _ love _ that.”

“We’ll see what we can do. This first, though.”   
Peter nodded and led the way through one of the many doors that perforated the deck, heading down into the depths on some inscrutable path that he knew and Sophia didn’t. 

 

The science block was practically empty at that time in the morning. The few scientists who were there were grey-faced and coffee-stained and didn’t even glance at the two heroes. Peter quickly scanned the mostly-empty workstations and then looked at Sophia - she nodded at him and he moved away to begin his distraction. Her eyes darted around and she followed the telltale signs of cabling towards a small door at the back of the room conveniently labelled “server”. Peter had managed to mix some chemicals together without anyone noticing, and soon the lab was filled with an intricate light show and an alarming popping sound that drew even the most exhausted scientists’ attention. Sophia tapped the earpiece she’d slipped in before she suited up that morning and spoke almost silently.   
“Athena…”   
_ “Yeah boss?” _

“I need you to take control of the cameras, keep eyes off me for a while.”   
_ “I’ll give it a try, boss.” _

Sophia watched on her phone screen as the cameras slowly panned over to focus on the ruckus that Peter had made, and then walked quietly to the server room door. It was unlocked. Thanking her luck Sophia slipped into the room and closed the door. 

 

The server room hummed loudly, the air conditioning keeping the room frosty. It was pretty easy to find the appropriate port on the appropriate server - the Shield IT guys should probably be fired - and she slipped a little custom-built box onto the back of the larger machine.    
“Perfect.”   
She left the room, making sure the door was properly closed behind her and Peter’s distraction was still ongoing before she quickly browsed through the workstations and found the one holding the physical samples she was looking for. As she was rifling through the slides, there was a loud roar that made her look up and narrow her eyes. Her gaze focused on the door that led to the containment room and she made a split-second decision. Leaving the workstation she let herself through the door. 

 

The room was comparatively tiny, a metal walkway suspended over a large chasm circling a large glass tank in the center of the room. The tank contained the monster that she’d fought weeks ago - her ribs still hadn’t fully healed from that - crouched down by one of the edges grumbling to itself. He was barely recognisable as human: huge and bulky, his skin was a dangerous shade of red-purple, with peculiar growths covered in thick, dark hair sprouting from his shoulders and back. Sophia took a slow turn around the walkway, admiring him from all angles. He caught sight of her and glared, baring his teeth at her - she took a step closer when she saw that they were sharp and needle-like, gleaming white in the harsh light of the tank. 

“Huh. Ugly bastard, aren’t you?”

She stepped closer again and peered at him.

“What did they do to you, Logan? And… who are they?”   
Without warning the creature in the tank rushed her, slamming against the glass with a scarily-solid thud and an accompaniment roaring scream. Sophia got a good look into the maw of the creature as it sprayed off-yellow spittle across the glass and she quickly retreated across the walkway.

“Ok ok calm down… sheesh.”

Thick stubby fingers scrabbled across the glass trying to find enough purchase to pull it apart. Sophia decided that it was probably time for her to leave, since Peter’s distraction would have been winding down, and beat a hasty retreat. 

 

Peters distraction had done its job, and the two of them scurried out of the science area as quickly as possible. Peter led them into a lounge and poured a cup of coffee as Sophia threw herself into one of the many comfortable chairs and gazed out a window at the clear blue sky. 

“Did you achieve your goal?”   
She tore her eyes away from the view and nodded, accepting a cup of coffee from her friend.   
“Yeah. Yeah I’m good.”   
“You seem… rattled.”   
“I, uh… might have gone into the containment chamber.”   
“Oh, shit… is it bad?”   
“He’s a big boy.”   
“Who is?”   
The third voice came from behind them, and the two whipped around to see Clint standing there in jeans and a t-shirt that clearly wasn’t his, looking tired but curious. Sophia answered him.

“Thor. He’s just… too big.”   
“Oh. Yeah.”   
Clint wandered over to the coffee maker and poured himself a cup. He stirred in a couple of spoons of sugar and then perched on the edge of a seat.

“Good party last night, huh? What I wouldn’t give for some of that youthful vigor you two have.”   
He rubbed his head and sipped his coffee, making a face.   
“God that’s  _ hot _ .”   
Sophia couldn’t stifle the giggle that bubbled out of her and Clint glared in response.

“Be nice to me, I’m old.” 

He took another sip and sighed. 

“I can’t believe a pizza-and-beer end of exams celebration turned so wild.”   
“It wasn’t that crazy, you guys left before 1am.”   
“Oh, we went out afterwards - you wouldn’t believe how many girls bought Thor Jagerbombs. He  _ loves _ them, says they’re the best thing to come out of Midgardian taverns.”

Another sip.

“The good Captain nursed one beer all night. For a guy who physically can’t get drunk you’d think he’d be abusing the hell out of it.”

Sophia pursed her lips at him.

“Language!”   
The three of them grinned at each other until Steve walked in and did a doubletake.    
“What are you three grinning about?”   
It was too much - they started laughing. Steve sulkily got coffee and, after trying and failing to get them to stop laughing, sighed.   
“Director Fury asked me to come and tell you that we’ve got a mission. I guess if you two are here, you should come along.”

Peter and Sophia exchanged excited glances. Clint disappeared mumbling something about not feeling very operationally-sound, and Steve motioned for the two younger Avengers to follow him.

 

Sophia had never been (officially) to the bridge - she looked around at the screens and smiled, knowing that she could own any of them if she so desired. The uniformed people were typing away coordinating various missions and agents all over the world. Fury stood at center command with his hands clasped behind his back, his attention off in the distance. He turned when he heard Steve coming up behind him, and quirked an eyebrow at the two younger ones trailing behind him.

“I don’t remember calling for the Avengers kindergarten… but if you’re here then you can help. We can probably spare a babysitter agent.”

Peter frowned at him, running his thumbs over the mask in his hand.

“We don’t need a babysitter, Director. What’s the mission?”

With a quick hand motion, Fury brought up a holoscreen. 

“We’ve received intel that a certain group known to us is going to be causing mayhem in New York. We need you guys in for, basically, PR - there to discourage citizens from looting and adding to the mayhem. People are less likely to mess neighborhoods up, set fires, flip cop cars - you know the kind of thing - when they know the Avengers will be there.”

Sophia and Peter traded glances, and Sophia cleared her throat.

“Director, I’m pretty sure I don’t need to go. The Iron Maiden is an L.A superhero. It’s not like I’m Spiderman, who’s home-grown, or Cap, who’s the nation’s favourite. New York citizens probably don’t even know who I am.”   
Fury trained his one good eye on her and smiled.   
“What better way to introduce yourself to the citizens of the world as one of us than to be seen out there helping out? And we might need your suit’s lifting ability in case buildings come down. We’re not entirely sure what we’ll need so we’re preparing everything.”

He continued on but Sophia drifted out of attention - this was it, apparently. She’d run missions with some of the Avengers before (mostly Spiderman and occasionally Black Widow and Hawkeye) but this was going to be her first part-of-the-full-team outing. She wished suddenly that she’d told Tony and Pepper where she was going.

  
“Any questions? No? Alright. Go suit up and head to the jump ship, you’re leaving at 10. And we will leave you behind if you’re not there.”

Fury walked back to his position overseeing the floor of busily-working agents, and the older Avengers walked away to finish their preparations. Sophia quickly texted her dad.

_ “Morning dad! Just thought I’d let you know that I’m heading off for a quick day-trip to New York with a couple of friends!” _

Minutes later she got a text back.   
_ “Have fun, use the platinum card if you see anything you like.” _

With a smirk, Sophia headed towards the landing pad where she’d left her suit. It was time to gear up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been out of high school for *squints* ... almost 9 years (ouch I'm so old) and I still get little pangs of dread about final exams. Enjoy a longer chapter! Is this still interesting to people? Should I split it off now and make it an entirely new work in a collective? Not sure, let me know!

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys thanks for reading! If you like my work, I have a story about the YouTuber Markiplier dealing with a murderous stalker (which you can find here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/2278167/chapters/5006220) which has been completed with 17 glorious chapters of nonsense! Additionally, I've started another Markiplier story titled "Markipler... IN SPAAACE!" which should tell you pretty much everything you need to know about it.
> 
> I'll be updating this story as much as I can. 
> 
> Thanks again! And hey leave some kudos (or even a comment if you wanna get a little crazy) if you REALLY liked it, it always makes me feel super warm and fuzzy when I see someone likes my writing enough to leave kudos.


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